


Forget Me Not

by Lovedinsecret



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Harrington, Character Death Fix, Fake Character Death, Gay Billy Hargrove, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22818676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovedinsecret/pseuds/Lovedinsecret
Summary: Steve Harrington has wanted a bond mark for as long as he can remember, a mark to prove that he belongs to someone, and that someone belongs to him. Someone to cherish and love. He thought he came close with Nancy before that went up in flames. Since then he sort of put the whole notion out of his mind. But the world is cruel, Steve thinks, when the mark blooms on his body right before he watches Billy struggle for breath. However nothing is as it seems when Doctor Owen's pays him a visit a few months later and brings a guest with him.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 94
Kudos: 287





	1. Love Run

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, ahh I'm so nervous. Anyway, this story has been bouncing around in my head since the third season aired. Bottom line I just need Steve happy and Billy alive. It's going to be angsty at first, but I swear it gets better! Also, I've been listening to Joey Batey's band The Amazing Devil, and so I've been inspired by at least a handful of their songs...we shall see if I continue to use their song titles as chapter titles.

There’s a tiny voice in the back of Steve’s mind that murmurs to him as he takes one of the fireworks in hand, lights it, and hurls it through the air to explode with shimmering violent beauty. The voice wonders how long he can go on like this. What is the tiny mistake he’s going to make that gets him killed, or someone else? He ignores it as best as he can, throws himself completely on autopilot, and forces his way through this disaster just like he’s done with all the others. Keep them safe, keep them safe, keep them safe, keep them safe, keep them safe. The only mantra that helps, the only thought that matters. His dad believes him to be a failure, and it’s here, in moments like this, when he knows his father is as wrong as it is possible to be. He might as well say that the sky is lime green.

Time seems to slow, that’s the first thing he notices. He can hear his heart trilling in his chest like the beat of a hummingbird’s wings, can hear his breath as it rushes past his lips. His head throbs in pain with each burst of sparkling light, each roar from the writhing creature on the floor below him. His knuckles protest as he grips the polished wood of the railing and he leans over it, eyes locked on Billy, screaming as hands clutch around the pale throat of El. Billy who could have once been comically referred to as his high school nemesis, who’s now possessed by a creature from another dimension. It’s hard to remember not to hate or fear the guy leaning over El, to remember that Billy wouldn’t actually be doing what he’s doing now if he were in control. He’s helpless up here to stop it. To stop anything. As helpless as Billy.

Time seems to stop all together though as Billy rises and puts himself in between that creature made of bodies and El. There’s a look flitting over Billy’s face that Steve catches just before those blue eyes lock onto his. Billy’s an entire floor below him and yet he might as well be a foot away, sharing breath with him. It’s heady and unexpected. It makes the air in his lungs burn. In that span of maybe a second, while Billy is staring at him and he is staring at Billy, it happens. He can feel the sear of it as the bond mark brands his skin. Tendrils of warmth and something sharp demanding to be felt. The sensation pools and spreads across his hip bone making his abdominal muscles flutter and his shoulders hunch as the breath is punched out of him. He doesn’t have time to feel the rush of wonderment that is supposed to follow, to feel feral and unbridled love breaking and remaking him anew. Because in the next second Billy plants his feet, giving an ear splitting roar as he catches the Mindflayer’s tentacle with open palms.

"Billy!” He screams, the sound ripped from him as his eyes widen in horror. He sees what comes next, the thing that Billy doesn’t dodge but accepts as if he’s resigned to it, as if he always knew how it would end. Another tentacle circles and rips into Billy’s side. The boy screams.

“Steve!” Robin calls after him, trying to grip him around the middle and hold him to her, but he flails in desperation. He knows he smacks her in the face in his attempt to flee, but he doesn’t stop to apologize, doesn’t stop at all, doesn’t stop. He has waited his entire life to feel what has made itself known across his hip and the person responsible might _die_ and Steve can’t just let that happen. He wishes that the world would just stop. Maybe it’s the remnants of the drug sloshing around in his body still, buzzing faintly down his veins, and warping his reality, but he knows what he knows, and what he _knows_ is that if he doesn’t hurry—if he doesn’t _run_ —that bond mark that sealed over his hip like a _brand_ will mean nothing and his life will be worse than it was yesterday. He knows what kind of grief comes with that unsealed fated mark when someone dies before it can ever be whole. It’s not even that he doesn’t want the bond and all it entails for his future, it’s that all he can think is of Billy. He’s got to save Billy.

His shoes give a shrill squeak as he slides down the metal that is in between the broken escalators, surfing it as Billy would a wave back where he came from, and it’s enough. That sound is enough of a distraction that no further tentacles seek out Billy’s flesh, but instead search to find him. It’s fine though, it’s _good._ He can work with that. Because while Billy is an immovable object, Steve _dances_. He runs, twirls, dodges, and weaves his way around the writhing monster thing that has Billy caught in its grip. Joyce must be doing her job because the thing trembles, shuddering as it shoots a tentacle to lash out feebly at Steve, but it is no matter. Steve leaps over the appendage as if it is nothing more than a fallen tree branch, his eyes locked onto Billy who is slowly being lowered as the Mindflayer’s strength begins to wane. With its last bit of strength, the creature made of chemicals and gross goopy body parts screams loud enough to wake the dead.

And then all at once, when Steve is about ten feet from him, Billy is dropped all together.

Steve’s legs burn and there is a stitch in his side that will not go away, but still he rushes forward putting all of his effort into just _getting there._ His head throbs violently, vision blurring and tunneling as he draws near, the glitter of stars dance in his eyesight as he stares. His shoes slip on the black substance that is leaking out of Billy, and Steve stomach lurches but he sinks down to his knees in it without thought anyway. His hands flutter helplessly, not wanting to hurt Billy more and not knowing what to do, until he just says _fuck it_ and grabs Billy, pulling his head into his lap.

Blue eyes lock onto his once more, and Billy’s mouth works, like his tongue seems too large for his mouth. “I’m…sorry.” He wheezes faintly, so quiet that Steve nearly doesn’t hear it at all.

“ _Stay with me._ ” Steve commands, meaning it the same way he had meant it last October when he told the kids to _run._ Because there is no reality in which Steve could have lived if they had died that night, and now that includes Billy too. But Billy listens about as well as he ever has. His eyes slip closed and black bile burbles out of his mouth as he gives a rattling exhale.

“Billy? Billy?!” Steve says in a panicked whisper. “No, no, no, no. Wake up, man. You can’t…don’t… _Billy!”_ His voice is shrill to his own ears and he feels like he’s going to puke as the desperation leaches up his throat. This can’t be the end, not here, not now, not when it had only barely just _begun._ He’s seen weirder shit turn out fine, hasn’t he? Been in far more dire situations, right? But Billy isn’t breathing. And that’s when Steve’s brain goes offline.

Time, which hasn’t made a lick of sense since being drugged by fucking Russians, ceases to hold all meaning. He doesn’t know if it’s been seconds, or minutes, or even hours, when he feels hands pulling at him, tugging. He hears the sirens, sees beams of flashlights and men decked out in all black swat military style bullshit, with guns and everything, but none of that really registers. There’s a tiny part of him, tucked away up in the corner of his numb soaked mind that is keeping track of it all, but the larger part of him has ceased to function. He’s met his limit for the day, week, fuck… _lifetime_. He’s fucking done. Robin has his face held in between her palms and she’s saying something but he’s not soaking that in. Max is crying, and El too, he thinks, and he thinks maybe he should be doing something about that, but what is there to do now?

“…eve, you with me buddy?” Robin’s lips are moving still, trying to tempt him into speaking, but he just can’t right now. And then there is a bright pen light dragging across his vision, but all he can do is stare dazedly. 

From there he doesn’t track much. He knows when strong hands attempt to disentangle him from Billy he sort of loses it. It isn’t until Robin puts her hands back on his face and shushes him that he can be soothed. But even that seems like an out of body experience, like he’s high up watching it happen, watching himself freak out and scream, but he can’t stop it, can’t force himself into some form of complacency without Robin’s soothing shushes, because losing that last bit of physical connection with Billy _hurts_ in ways he can’t explain. Thankfully Robin seems to sense this and stays right there with him even as they are ushered out of the mall and into the parking lot.

There are emergency vehicles everywhere, military too. It’s a barrage of flashing red and blue lights and though Steve can’t quite make his mouth work, he has more than a few choice things to say. Like, _why the fuck weren’t you here at the bare minimum of forty five minutes ago? Why couldn’t you have shown up before my…my… Billy was skewered by a fucking monster?_ And the shitty thing is? If he could go back and demand they fix their shit sooner, he would, so way back, back before he’d even heard of the Upside Down, but he would fucking settle for the last forty five minutes and thank them for it. Instead he allows himself to be pulled over to the back of one of the ambulances, a blanket to be tucked around his shoulders, and sits silently while Robin fills the paramedic in on what all they had endured that night. They talk for a while, but he doesn’t catch a word of it. He’s poked and prodded, but none of it matters. He feels _numb_. Should he feel this numb? 

“Steve?” Robin asks, squeezing his hand to catch his attention after who knows how long.

“Yeah?” Everything feels too slow and sticky, spreading out like the molasses his grandmother used to put on biscuits. He swallows and forces himself to pay attention to the way Robin’s mouth moves so he doesn’t get caught in a trail of thoughts about his dead grandmother and how now Billy is dead too.

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

He nods blearily. Having Robin there with him tonight would probably be a good idea, someone to ground him from this entire experience. Because right now he sort of feels like he’s going to float away into a sea of awful, barely tethered as he is.


	2. Two Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sad boy Steve hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so...yeah, I said it was going to get worse before it gets better, right? I hope I did anyway. This chapter HURT to write. Get some tissues and like, your favorite snuggly object to cuddle. I do love Steve, I swear! I honestly hated doing this to him. Also, I listened to Two Minutes on repeat, which everyone needs to go listen to that song. I cannot say enough about The Amazing Devil.

It’s been three months and twelve days since the battle at Starcourt mall, not that Steve’s been counting or anything, at least not on purpose. It just sort of happens in the lulls between what little activity he’s managed since, when his mind goes quiet, when his hand grazes against the memory emblazoned upon his hip, against the mark. Billy’s mark. The one he branded into Steve and then left, snuffed out of existence, fled where Steve couldn’t follow. It’s bullshit. Such fucking bullshit that Steve can’t speak, can’t think, just wishes that he could die and for everything to all be over. But the shit thing is, he’d never do that. It’s not that he lacks the guts to do a thing like that, follow Billy into the next life, if there is such a thing. It’s that he can’t stomach what it might do to the people that care about him. Because in these past three months and twelve days, Steve has learned that people really do give a shit about him. Even Nancy.

The thing that sucks about this whole grief thing is the unpredictability of it. Some days, he’s fine, or well near enough to it that he’d call it that anyway. He goes out with Robin, lets her prattle on about some indie queer flick she saw and can even form coherent responses, enough that she looks at him and smiles bright and warm. He can pick up Dustin and take him out for a milkshake, nod in all the right places as he explains his latest science project that is thankfully not biology related (no further interest in discovering new species of amphibians, thank god). He has even sat in on the one D&D campaign that the party played when Joyce brought Will and El to visit for a weekend last month. The rest of the time, though? He feels carved out and hollow, like his insides are slicked in poison, like there’s this perpetual hole in his torso that will never be healed because Billy branded him and then died in the next instant and Steve cannot…he can’t wrap his head around just how fucked that is. He reels from it. How much he hates Hargrove. And just how fucking much he would give to see him again. Steve never knows if its going to be a good day or one in which he doesn’t get out of bed. And if he can’t predict it, neither can anyone else.

He knows today is a bad day before he opens his eyes, though. Can feel the oppressive weight of it on him like lead. His heart throbs dully in his chest. His stomach churns. His eyes are sticky from crying in his sleep. He dreamt about him again, which is always a surefire way to be reduced to this…waste of what he once was. _King Steve,_ a snarling thought tangles in his mind that sounds like Billy. Steve wonders what Billy would think of him now. _Spoiled rich boy can’t get out of bed because his bondmate died, go cry me a river, Harrington._ Maybe he will. Maybe he will cry so damn much that he shrivels up and blows away on the wind. None of it matters anyway, Billy’s gone, and he’s here stuck in this hell. He almost hates Billy for it…almost.

The fucked up thing, or one of them anyway, is that he never thought of Billy like that before everything. He was such a dick that Steve only looked twice to be sure that he wasn’t about to get hit again. Billy was rude, and gruff, and got in his space when he felt like it, avoided him like the plague when he felt like it. It wasn’t enough for Steve to see what it could have been before…well. And now, he has these dreams that just annihilate any sense of healing he could hope to gain. They aren’t of Billy dying in his lap again, though those are bad too. No these are…well, they are downright pleasant. Lovely little things, about nothing important really. Making Billy pancakes and receiving and appreciative smile with Billy’s perfect too-sharp teeth. A brush of lips against his cheek. Hands intertwining while walking down the main drag. Absolutely mundane things that he will never get to have because Billy was an asshole to be avoided before they bonded and dead mere moments after. He doesn’t even know if Billy would have liked any of that shit. He’s grieving and falling for an idea, which is maybe the worst part of it all. And he knows he is, but that doesn’t make it any easier to pull himself out of it.

Steve rolls over, away from the strip of bright light coming in from his window, and tucks his knees up into his chest. The ache there is so palpable, so visceral and raw, that he clenches his teeth against crying out. It doesn’t help. Nothing does. Joyce told him time would, but in these dark moments he wonders if that’s true. Because right now it feels like he will never be who he was before July forth, 1985. He hates himself for wishing for a bondmate and a bondmark. He’d only ever paid attention to the good aspects of having one and threw himself into longing for that. He never realized exactly what could happen if it went wrong. Never realized he might very well lose the very thing that made him, _him_ in the process.

Sometime later he drags himself out of bed and trudges downstairs. He should eat, he knows. It’s been difficult, especially on bad days like this one, but he knows better than to not try. He doesn’t have the energy or wherewithal to do more than cereal. He pours himself a bowl of lucky charms, ignoring the cheery note Nancy taped on the fridge from the last time she was over. She usually brings him groceries when she comes over, sometimes even casseroles her mom makes, like it’s her own personal mission to make sure that he eats. It works, sometimes. Sometimes he just stares at the pyrex containers of lasagna and tuna casserole until his toes get cold and then shuts the fridge door on them. He takes his bowl upstairs and sits with it in his lap while he leans against the headboard. He must look like a fucking mess. He doesn’t care. Instead of eating, he mostly swirls his spoon through the cereal, nudging rapidly sogging beige shapes and meticulously shoving down each bright little marshmallow until the milk turns a weird sort of grayish pink, before he sits it back on his nightstand.

The bowl of cereal is still there when Robin announces her entrance at three thirty. Her voice trills up to meet his ears, but he doesn’t move. She will find him where he lays, she always does. He counts her steps as she thunders up the stairs. Robin isn’t loud on her own, hell she could be damn near silent if she chose, but he knows she does it for him. Not even because she doesn’t want to startle him, but so the house sounds like there is life in it, and he loves her for it. The door creaks open slowly as she fills out the frame with her head cocked to the side to take in the wreck he is today.

“Sitting down in the shower kind of day, Dingus?” She asks.

“Haven’t even made it to the shower.” He answers. He can’t even remember the last time he bathed, a few days ago, but exactly when he isn’t sure. It had been his own decision then. But then it hadn’t been a bad day. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t like this one where he can’t even bring himself to eat.

“I can tell.” She says, smirking at him. She doesn’t pity him and for that, he is more grateful than he can say. “Couldn’t even put on decent pajamas from the look of it.” Her arms cross as she looks him up and down, assessing. She’s right of course. He’s in his boxers and a bathrobe, which is, more or less, his uniform for bad days.

He grunts and she takes that as her invitation to come into the room, dropping her bag next to his desk. She putters around, picking up his dirty laundry and tossing it into the hamper, before eyeing his hours-old bowl of cereal with a raised eyebrow.

“I thought I was hungry, turns out I wasn’t.” He shrugs.

“That’s what you get for trying to eat—what are those? Lucky Charms?”

“Do not knock Lucky Charms, Robin. I cannot handle that kind of incorrect opinions on a day like today.” He grouses.

“Nightmare?”

He sighs. “No. Turns out holding hands while at a carnival is enough to make me hate life upon waking.”

She sinks down next to him then, small frown on her face. He hates that he put it there. She runs her fingers through his hair, even though it has to be greasy. “I bet it was nice though, for a time.”

A lump rises in his throat, hard and unyielding, and his eyes sting. He tries to swallow but ends up making a pathetic sob. “It was.”

“Oh, Steve, come here.” She pulls him into her lap, lets him sob into her belly. She’s soft and warm and smells like comfort.

“I just wish he could come back.” He says, voice cracking and snot running. It really is just _the worst._

“I know, honey.”

They are like that for a while. Until Steve cries himself out. As awful as his bad days are, he doesn’t usually cry unless he’s asleep. Something about the waspish way his parents raised him makes him shut down when it comes to actually weeping. Makes him bury his pain until it slicks that poison soaked hole inside of him. He will sit there, obviously miserable, but not _crying_ , for days at a time, but this is a rare thing.

His parents don’t know what to do with him. His father has pretty much washed his hands of the situation, but that happened at the beginning of the summer and not when Steve’s heart was ripped in twain by a monster from another dimension. His mother seemed sympathetic at first, but when it was clear that Steve wasn’t going to just _get_ over it, didn’t have the strength to _pretend_ , she gave him the space to wallow. She’s been to Italy twice since the bruises and cuts healed on Steve’s face. It’s where she is now, while his father is in New York. He’s almost grateful that they are gone most of the time, so he doesn’t have to feel shame for what is happening right now.

“Alright, you. Let’s get you in the shower. You’ll feel better after,” Robin assures him.

So he goes, allows himself to be pulled into the in-suite bathroom, and sits obediently on the toilet seat lid while Robin messes with the taps. She ruffles his hair once she’s done and leaves him to his own devices. And he does shower. Shampoos his hair twice before conditioning, washes his face and body like he’s supposed to. But then he sort of just sinks down to the bottom, leaning his back against the cold tile and lets the hot water beat at his skin while he drifts.

_Today’s just not your day, man…_

_Plenty of bitches in the sea…_

It’s stupid really. Billy was being a dick. It shouldn’t be stuck in his mind like leftover gum, something that would take a chisel to get out. But it is. One thing that he knows is _real_ about everything else that he feels when it comes to Billy. Those words were real. The voice in his memory is Billy’s actual voice. Which is something special now. When he’s haunted by a whole lot of what could have been between them. He at least has this little slice of what _was._

When he gets out of the shower and puts on the sweats that Robin had set on the sink for him, he does feel marginally better. It must show when he exits the bathroom to find Robin sitting at his desk reading a book in one of his shirts. Her snot stained one hangs on the edge of his laundry basket.

“Movie?” He asks, because he would kind of like to get lost in one right now.

“Let’s do the damn thing!” She crows, tossing her book down and jumping up. Really, it doesn’t warrant that kind of reaction, he thinks, but then again, maybe it does.

It’s much later in the night, after Robin has called her mom and murmured into the receiver while shooting him secretive glances that aren’t secretive at all, that she tells him that Dr. Owens left a message on his answering machine. He’s going to be coming by next week for a house visit. Joy…


	3. Pray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> be careful what you wish for, Steve

The week goes on, Steve feels marginally better. Never great, never who he used to be. But better than lying around sobbing in a bathrobe and his underwear surely. Robin has something for band this week, a competition maybe, Steve’s fuzzy on the details, but he is trying really hard to hold it together so that he can go. He wants to be able to support her. Not being able to guarantee that makes him feel shitty, even if she snorts and tells him not to worry about it, that she gets it. Which is, oddly enough, one of the things he constantly worries about. How long is the grace period for his grief? How long until this it isn’t okay anymore? How long until those that support him get tired of doing so? He doesn’t know. The not knowing eats at him.

Maybe he’d feel more secure in what is allowed and for how long if he were like Joyce. Joyce knew the men she loved on a far more intimate level before they died than Steve knew Billy. Joyce who wasn’t in love with the idea of a person, like Steve was, because an idea is all he has. His soul screams out for what it has lost and his mind comes up with what that could have been. Joyce at least knows what that would have been like. She knew that Bob liked hot tea instead of coffee and that he was a wiz at mind games. She knew that Hopper smoked two cigarettes before he had his morning coffee and that he liked the pink iced donuts over the chocolate ones, that he didn’t like sprinkles. To his knowledge, Joyce wasn’t bonded to either of them, but she loved them. She grieved for both of them. But what if he had something similar with Billy before he had died? It would be worse, surely. Steve is barely surviving as is.

He brushes all these thoughts aside and focuses on cleaning the house. Dr. Owens is making a house visit tomorrow, and if the doctor came to a house that was less than perfect, Steve’s mother would have a fit. He’s a mess, the house can’t be. So, he’s cleaning. It’s kind of soothing, honestly. Wiping down the counter tops and dusting the mantel. Making the house sparkle and shine in a way he can’t because he’s too broken. His favorite part is making the perfect lines on the carpet with the vacuum cleaner. As long as he’s focused on this, he doesn’t think of all the bullshit. If it’s okay to be grieving like he is. None of that matters as long as he can get the lines just so.

By the time he’s finished the sun has gone down and the house smells like lemons. There’s a small sort of pride that swells in his belly. The fact that he can still do this, can make the house look this good. He cracks open a beer from the fridge and surveys his hard work with a small smile curling at the corners of his lips, a rare sight these days indeed. The pride sits there, a buoyant balloon, making him feel warm and accomplished. That is until he takes in the windows in the living room, and the blue light that presses in on them from the pool’s glow. Until he remembers Barb, and what really happened that night in his pool, the night that started everything for Steve. And he hates it. He takes his beer and climbs the stairs, taking them two at a time to get away from the oppressive quiet of this empty house that is so clean you could eat off the floors. Isn’t settled until he has his back pressed against his shut bedroom door and all the lights on in his room so he can’t see the glow creeping around the heavy curtains he has in there. 

When he sleeps, its fitfully, dreaming of tunnels and fire and tiny lives he must keep safe, and the one life that irrevocably tied itself to him that he failed. He awakens more tired than when he started.

Nancy is there when the good doctor arrives. She wanted to be, plus it just makes things easier that way. Dr. Owens is doing his rounds. Delivering government checks to compensate for shit that you can’t compensate for. Therapizing where he can, checking over old wounds, both mental and not. Robin would have been here too, but she has extra band practice for that competition this weekend, so Dr. Owens will probably meet her later somewhere. Probably at Joyce’s old place. The house never sold, and with the government assistance she didn’t need it to, just needed to be free of it. Steve understands that. They all do. Even if it’s not a choice they could make. Steve doesn’t know if he could ever make it, knowing what he knows now. Doesn’t know if he would ever feel safe leaving Hawkins behind, and knows he will never feel safe _in_ Hawkins. It’s a fuck of a situation.

Steve’s on edge as he always is for these visits. Manic with anxious energy that makes him pinball around the too large house. He fidgets with the collar of his shirt, with his hair. Picks at his cuticles until they bleed. He arranges and rearranges the stuff on the mantel. Nancy clucks her tongue at him and tells him to sit down because he’s making her nervous. He does, but only for about five minutes, so she rolls her eyes and goes to the kitchen to start work on dinner.

At a quarter to five the doorbell rings and Steve goes to get it. He opens the big heavy wooden door to reveal Dr. Owens’ kind and expectant face and it takes Steve a moment too long to notice the person behind him. To notice the blond curls of a much shorter haircut, the scar bisecting his eyebrow, those blue eyes that haunt his every waking moment. His heart speeds up in his chest instantly, racing and thundering in his ears. His breath leaves him in a rush. It takes his mind a bit to catch up with the situation. To place those curls with that scar and those eyes and full lips. To realize that he’s not hallucinating. He feels suddenly hot and then cold all at once as a sheen of sweat breaks out across the back of his neck. Faint…he might just do it. He’s never fainted before, but there’s spots in his vision that make him think that now might be the time he does.

“Now, Steve, I know this is a bit of a shock. Why don’t we get settled in the living room and I can explain?” Dr. Owens tries, but Steve isn’t listening. Steve’s not here at the moment. Steve is pretty damn sure that he must have passed out on the couch waiting for the doctor to arrive and that this is a dream and when he wakes up he’s going to realize that none of this is real. Because Billy Hargrove is alive, and he is standing right in front of him. And most importantly, Steve doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Steve?” It’s the first word Billy has said to him— _really said to him_ —since _I’m sorry_. Since he fucking _died_ in his lap and left Steve behind to battle with a pain he’s never known before. And his voice sounds just like he remembers, and those electric blue eyes are locked onto his and Steve can’t _think._

There is a crash behind him. The shattering of a baking dish on tile and the wet splat of the food inside of it as it spreads out from impact.

“Billy?” comes Nancy’s thin and small voice.

Steve rocks back and forth unsteadily on his feet as his world sways precariously around him.

Steve finds himself on the floor of the living room with his legs propped up on pillows. His head is tilted at a funny angle, sharply to the side so that when he opens his eyes he doesn’t see anyone, just hears them talking. He can see the wreckage that was meant to be his dinner though. Rice and vegetables with chicken in a cream sauce splattered across the tile in the foyer, dotted with irregular shards of ceramic. He’s going to have to tell his mother that he broke one of her antique baking dishes. She’s going to be pissed. Something about that thought makes a smile tug into place on his lips. Maybe it’s the fact that she hasn’t cooked since he was six and his grandmother moved in with them and took over cooking.

“Okay, so explain this to me again.” Nancy says, and she has her serious voice on. There’s a slight tremble to it. If Steve turned to look at her, he’s sure that she would be pursing her lips.

Somewhere near him Billy groans. “Do we have to Wheeler? I mean does it really fucking matter? I’m here. Tadaaaa.”

“Yes it matters, you have no idea—”

“Yeah and that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? I had no idea. Now you don’t. Seems fair to me.” Billy sneers. “It’s none of your fucking business anyway. We aren’t friends.”

“I’m Steve’s friend.” Nancy insists, voice heated. There’s the sound of fabric rustling, soft thumps of feet stomping on the plush carpet. Oh, Steve is certainly missing a show. He should say something, let them know he’s awake, but he doesn’t exactly want to stop this.

“You have interesting ways of showing that,” is all Billy says.

“Like you’d know.” Nancy clips in response.

Steve groans, he can’t help it. They are acting like children and deviating away from what Steve could gather was the point of the conversation, like how the fuck Billy is alive, which is something he desperately wants to know. Nancy is kneeling in line of his vision in the next second, anger gone and in its place worry. He’s so sick of making her worry.

“Steve? Are you okay? You went white as a sheet and fainted.” Nancy says, lips pinched into a sympathetic frown as she pushes his hair off of his forehead.

“Gathered that much since I’m now over here, thanks.” He says. Someone moves next to him, a groan and joints popping as they stand, and then he can see Billy again, looming over him behind Nancy and leaning heavily on his cane. A cane? He didn’t realize Billy was walking with a cane. Billy just looks at him and then shuffles off in the direction of the kitchen, like he owns the place. It’s about at that second that Nancy notices he’s leaving the room too and she snaps around.

“Where are you going?”

“To go get him water, what’s it look like?” Billy snaps back, shaking his head.

And then Nancy is off, hurrying after him. “Oh go sit down, you don’t even know where the cups are.”

Steve gets to watch an irritated Billy Hargrove hobble back into the living room. His eyes follow him as he crosses back to where he was sitting on the couch. Billy looks at him, smiles and for once Steve thinks it is a real smile, not the mocking ones that he’s seen out of Billy before. It’s tight and a bit tired looking, but still real. Real and not a dream either.

“Hey, Pretty Boy.” He says.

Steve makes a sound, somewhere between a gasp and a choked sob. It sounds pathetic to his ears, but it makes Billy’s lips turn down into a wince. Steve’s mind is spinning out, lost in all the little moments that have happened between them, most of them not good, in which Billy had sneered that nickname at him. Never once did it make him feel warmth. It always twisted his stomach before, but right now, something inside of him is relaxing and going soft. He’s glad he’s still on the floor, because he’s dizzy. “Is this real?”

Billy nods. “Yeah, Dr. Owens can explain better than I can.”

Soon enough Nancy is back fluttering over him, helping him sit up slowly and giving him a glass of water. He takes a few careful sips before turning to Dr. Owens.

“Well?” He says expectantly. Because this is crazy, this whole thing is crazy. And he would really like an explanation of how Billy is alive and in his living room right now. With no warning, he might add. A bit of warning would have been helpful. Maybe he wouldn’t have fainted then.

Dr. Owens sighs and looks a bit sheepish. “You aren’t going to like what I have to say, Steve. I don’t really have much in the way of defending my actions except to say that in the beginning I truly did not think he would live, but I had hope. I had hope that one day I could bring him back to you.”

“You knew he wasn’t dead, and yet you let me and everyone else believe that to be the case?” Steve says slowly. Because how he lived doesn’t really matter, he knows he’s not going to understand the ins and outs of that process anyway.

“I had to. The faction of the government that I work for was very interested in researching every little bit of the Upside Down it can get its hands on, you know this, you’ve seen accounts of it first hand with little Jane and Will. If they found out what I was doing they would have taken him from me and run experiment after experiment, keen enough to leave him on life support and not at the very least try to correct and heal his multitude of injuries. If I told anyone that I had him, they would have found out. To be honest, I thought the whole thing was a fool’s errand anyway, but I persisted. I had hoped that the fact that he stands before you now would be enough to barter a small modicum of forgiveness for the wrongs that I have done along the way.”

Steve runs his tongue across the front of his teeth and takes a slow breath in and out. “You _knew_ , you let us _grieve,_ you let us bury an _empty casket in Cargill Cemetery,_ and you said _nothing.”_

“Please accept my deepest apologies for that. I know his family has suffered. I know that you—”

“You don’t know _shit!”_ The words fly from Steve’s mouth before he intended to say them but once they were out in the open, he can’t bring himself to regret them. An anger greater than he’s ever known is pooling in his gut and lighting up his chest, sending ice crackling down his veins. He could scream, but it wouldn’t change the facts. It wouldn’t change that he was lied to, that the past three months had been hell and still would have been hell if he’d known that Billy had lived, but it wouldn’t have been like it was. He would have been able to fucking breathe half the time at least. He would have had _hope_ of existing.

Dr. Owens flinches and folds his hands in his lap. “To say it was touch and go in the beginning is a gross understatement. I…well, on top of needing to keep him a secret, I didn’t want to encourage the hope that he would pull through because there were many times that I believed he wouldn’t.”

“How long?” Steve sneers, lip curling. His voice is low, cold, and dangerous. “How long from the time that you knew he would live until you showed up on my doorstep?”

“Steve, it’s not his fault.” Billy interjects.

Steve laughs humorlessly and runs a hand over his face. “Fucking forgive me, but you have no idea what the fuck I’ve been through and _he_ has. It is entirely his fault that I didn’t know because he didn’t say.”

“I told him not to.”

Billy’s words hit him like a punch to the gut. They suck all the air out of the room. It was one thing to consider that Dr. Owens had been keeping Billy in one of those secret government labs, that he let everyone grieve his death while he tried like Dr. Frankenstein to bring Billy back to life. It was entirely another thing to consider that Billy, the man he was supposed to be bonded to, the man who was the cause of all of his misery the past few months, had extended that misery by telling Dr. Owens not to say a word to give him even an ounce of relief.

“ _Get. Out.”_

Steve stares at the pattern of the rug near his knee while he trembles and shakes as Billy gapes at him. He doesn’t look at Billy. He doesn’t look at Dr. Owens. Doesn’t watch them slowly realize just how very serious he is and get to their feet or Nancy walking them to the door. As soon as the door clicks shut Steve takes the glass of water in his hand and hurls it at the wall nearest to him with as much force as he can muster. Nancy gives a little shriek of surprise as she jolts at the sound.

“Steve, I know—”

“Don’t.” he cuts her off, shaking his head. “Don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this whole image in my head of what Steve would look like if he was really pushed to his limit. Just how different his rage would be than Billy's. I hope that came out in the work. But also, yay Billy's not dead, I told you he'd be back.


	4. There Are Questions I Can't Ask

Friday finds Steve sitting in the Beamer, fingers tapping away on the steering wheel as he waits for Dustin outside of the arcade. He’s still angry, low levels of rage constantly thrumming under the surface of his skin, making him snappish. Which is why he’s here, why he called Mrs. Henderson and asked if he could take Dustin out for dinner at the diner. He’s hoping that the kid will find a way to distract him from his thoughts for an entire evening. Dustin is usually pretty good at that kind of thing. Yesterday he’d smoked with Robin until they practically melted into his bedsheets. He’d been so high that he was able to laugh about his life. Just how absurd and ridiculous it is. It’d felt good then, but he can’t spend his life high and he needs another outlet that’s more…healthy. Normal. His hands itch to play basketball, to get this aggression out in a physical way, but it’s been raining the past three days. That kind of dreary cold autumn rain that seeps into your bones. He still could play, but he’d probably wind up getting himself sick or something in the process.

“Steve!” Dustin calls from the door of the arcade, loud enough that he can be heard inside the car. He’s all grins and curls, as he runs through the drizzle to get to the door. “Hey, mom didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Yeah, I just called her a little bit ago, wanna go to the diner?”

“Sure!”

Dustin’s excitement and happiness is as infectious as Steve had banked on it being and within moments he’s pulling out of the parking lot wearing a matching smile as Dustin yammers on about Dig Dug and Max’s new high score that is _fucking unreal, Steve, it’s ridiculous_. He also talks about this girl in his English class named Jennifer, and there’s something about the way he describes her that tells Steve he’s into her in a big way. Could be the slight blush that’s tinging his cheeks too.

“You going to invite her to the arcade one day, show off a bit?” He asks, grinning.

“What? No! She’s… she’s into books man. I don’t want to bore her.”

“You’re into books,” Steve points out.

“Yeah, but not this girl, okay? The arcade is not her scene. Besides, like you said, I don’t wanna look too interested.” Dustin says fidgeting with his backpack.

“I might have been wrong with that. You do want to let her know that you _are_ interested. It’s a fine line.”

“Like Nancy, I got it Steve. This isn’t my first girlfriend.” Dustin says sagely.

They pull up to the diner and Dustin shifts in his seat to look fully at him instead of opening the door to get out. “So…Max told me something a bit ago.” He says, eyes soft as he chews on his lip. Being as delicate with the situation as a freshman can be.

“I’m sure she did.” Steve nods. Part of him is thoroughly relieved that Max knows, he’d been too upset to call and make sure. The rest of him simmers with barely suppressed anger at the reminder of what he’s trying desperately to forget.

Dustin’s face screws up, like he’s thinking real hard about something, trying to work it out. “I thought you’d be, well, happier?”

Steve leans back, rubs his forehead with his fingertips. “It’s a lot.”

Dustin snorts. “No shit. Everything about this situation could be quantified as _it’s a lot._ You bonded to Billy fucking Hargrove, man. He beat your face in a year ago. He was the town’s biggest _asshole_ and all around sleaze bucket. Then we thought he died, and you’ve been mourning him for months. And now he’s not dead. It’s a fucking hell of a shit situation.”

“Language.” Steve snaps. “Jesus man, your mom is going to kill me if she finds out I let you talk like that.”

Dustin laughs and shakes his head, not taking him seriously at all. “She already knows, Steve. I’d apologize but fucking look at the facts, I think a bit of swearing is warranted.” He reaches out and pats Steve’s arm. Steve can feel his palm warm through the material of his sweater and long-sleeve shirt. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright. It’s okay if you’re not.”

“Did Max tell you that the reason Dr. Owens didn’t say anything was because Billy told him not to?” Steve asks with a raised eyebrow before pulling his lips in between his teeth. He’s so mad, just so fucking _mad._

Dustin frowns, and cracks his knuckles before knocking them together a few times. He’s holding something back, Steve can tell. He narrows his eyes.

“What?”

“Look, it’s ah, not my place.” He puts his hands up, palms facing out to Steve. “But there’s some stuff you don’t know about the whole thing and I think you gotta talk to Billy about why he told Dr. Owens not to say anything. He does have a reason, but it’s not my story to tell.”

“Spill it Dustin! What about friends don’t lie?”

“I’m not lying! I’m just saying, you are _bonded_ to the guy, Steve. That doesn’t go away. It’s a big deal. And yeah, he hurt you. More than once. And this whole thing is terrible. And he _should not_ have done that to you. I am totally on your side about that. But you gotta talk to him, right?” Dustin shrugs with a wince and it’s then that Steve realizes the scope of the conversation that they are having and just how unfair it is to act like that to a kid. He sighs, slumping down further in his seat and unclicks the seatbelt.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Let’s go get some dinner.”

“Hey dude, it’s cool. Like, we’re friends, you know?”

“We are.” Steve agrees, nodding. “But—and you might hate me for saying this—but know I’m saying it cause I care about you, okay? This situation? It’s adult stuff. You are fourteen and you shouldn’t have to deal with it, like, _at all._ It’s my shit, alright? I’ve got to learn to handle it better. You’ve already had to deal with stuff that you never should have been made to, grown up faster than you should have. I want you to still be a kid, okay?”

“I know. But, because we are friends and because the Upside Down and all of that? I think I can handle your romance issues, I’m just saying.” Dustin gives him a grin as he hops out of the car.

“It’s not romance issues.” Steve groans shaking his head. He wishes it were romance issues. Hell, he’d take Nancy ripping his heart out in Tina’s bathroom with her slurred _bullshit_ ten times over instead of this.

As much as he can, Steve pulls Billy from his mind at least for the weekend. He spends Saturday driving to Evansville for the band competition and sits high up in the stands, watching a tiny Robin march across the football field in perfect formation. He buys her a hotdog after and she talks him into stealing her away from the other band nerds who are high on their victory, placing second in the regional championship.

It feels…eerily like his old self. He forgets for a blessed moment. He forgets the mark that brands his hip and all of the heartbreak that came with it. He forgets the betrayal and the grief. He forgets that a few days ago he’d been so worried that he wouldn’t be able to get his shit together enough to be here for her, and now that he’s here, it’s _easy._ He’s having _fun._ His chest hasn’t tightened painfully, his stomach has stayed right where it’s meant to be, and his heart is suspiciously fine as long as he doesn’t examine all of these things too closely. It’s only later, when they are pleasantly stoned and sitting by the pool, bundled in blankets with their bare feet in the warm water, that he feels the weight of it all. 

“Not to like, jinx it, or anything. But, you seem happy.”

Steve smiles at her, kicks his feet a bit, and sighs. “I’m not, really. I’m still so fucking angry. But this,” he shrugs. “I can feel past that anger, if that makes sense? Dustin says I need to talk to him and I don’t want to, but I have to, I know I do. I just,” he licks his lips, tongue sticky, “I don’t know what to say to him. And I’m sick of thinking about him so I’m taking the weekend to not.”

Robin leans into him, brushing his shoulder with hers. “I think that’s about the healthiest thing you’ve done since the Forth of July. I’m proud of you.”

“Don’t make me dump you into this pool, Buckley, cause I will and I won’t even feel bad about it.”

“Don’t you dare.” She glares, holding her finger out in his face, before shifting gears once she realizes he’s not serious. “What are you going to do once you’ve stopped being angry with him? Have you thought about it? About what you want out of this thing between you two?”

That brings Steve up short and he blinks dazedly out into the dark forest. It sounds stupid to think, but he really hasn’t given the future part of it any thought at all. He spent so long not thinking that there was a future in which he could be happy, so long thinking that he was going to grieve Billy until he died. He’d been so angry with him after he found out that he wasn’t dead that he completely forgot that in all technicality, all of those dreams that used to fuck him up so much, he could…in theory…find out if they had any truth to them. He could discover if Billy likes pancakes. If he would be the type to hold hands. The thought makes his heart flutter stupidly in his chest. It must show on his face because Robin breaks out into a smirk.

“Am I about to learn just how secretly sappy Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington is?” She says devilishly. “You want to be with him, don’t you? You want to kiss him and cuddle him and run your fingers through his hair.” She singsongs.

“Shut up.” He says, swallowing.

“Oh my god, you do!” Her jaw drops. “This is going to be great. The best entertainment to ever hit Hawkins Indiana. I’m going to get a front row seat to you being an absolute idiot over Billy Hargrove.” She shimmies next to him, rolling her eyes and cooing, “ _What a stud.”_

“God, you’re gross.” Steve shoves her lightly, not enough to send her into the pool.

“As if that wasn’t what all the girls in school said about him.”

“Yeah, I remember, it was fucking annoying.” He rolls his eyes. 

“Well, that, we can agree on. But just think. They all wanted him, and now you have him, lucky you.”

“Oh, yeah, lucky me. _So lucky_. It’s practically my middle name.” He drawls. “I unwittingly bagged the big bad Billy Hargrove and I have been miserable ever since, so lucky.”

“Unwittingly?” She raises her eyebrows. “That’s an awfully big word for how stoned you are, Steve McQueen.”

“I was serious about throwing you into the pool.” He reminds her.

She reaches down to get her fingers wet before flicking them in his face and getting up. “Come on, it’s been a long day. I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

Later Steve lays next to her as she sprawls across half of his bed, snoring softly. He rubs his hand over his belly and wonders about the future, about what he wants, and about the things he maybe could have if he let go of the anger and talked to Billy. He lets his hand drift over to his hip, shifts his shirt up and the waistband of his sweats down a bit so that he can finger over the mark there, finding comfort in it being on his body for the first time since it’s appearance. He’s going to get to know Billy Hargrove. He’s going to get to keep him. He falls asleep drunk on the thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its a bit of a filler chapter. Steve's gotta settle into how he feels about things. I enjoyed writing the interactions between Steve and Dustin and between Steve and Robin.


	5. Like Real People Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those meddling kids.

So, Steve knows he needs to talk to Hargrove. He knows he does. Because there’s all of this shit left between them, whole mounds of it. He’s hurt and angry and confused, and he knows that the only way to fix that _is_ by talking to Billy. But when he thinks about it, he just gets so angry that his thoughts begin to snarl and tangle in his mind. He also has this weird longing sort of deep in the pit of his stomach, that he thinks might be relieved if he just…looks at Billy’s face. And _that_ makes him angry too. Because yes, he’s bonded to the guy, the guy he thought was dead, the guy who let him think he was dead for months… He doesn’t want this longing to exist for someone who wasn’t even his friend before all of this and treated him this way since. It is, in short, a mess.

He paces the large empty house he hates, idly allowing his fingers to drift over the swirls and shapes that are branded on his hip. He should call Billy, but he doesn’t know a number to reach him at. Although that thought in itself is a bold-faced lie. He knows he could call Max and she would give him the number. But then again, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she has some sort of loyalty to her step brother and maybe he told her not to give out his number. That seems like just the sort of thing that asshole would do, considering he _knew_ people were mourning him and yet told Dr. Owens to _not say anything._ Fuck! _Fuck!_

But then a thought hits him. It’s so sudden and provides so much clarity that it makes him stop pacing and just stare at the beige carpet. What if…what if Billy really didn’t think people were mourning him? What if he thought that they’d be glad that he was gone? Steve sits down, just right where he is at the top of the stairs. He blinks in the nothingness as his mind races, trying to put himself in Billy’s shoes, to parse out the reason why, and he thinks he might actually have figured it out. Of course, he could be wrong, but he doesn’t think he is.

His memories of the funeral are a painful blur intermixed with a drunken haze at best. It was one of the hardest things he’d had to live through, and his chest still aches when he thinks about it, even now, after knowing that none of it was real. He remembers sitting in the front row, situated between Robin and Nancy as they basically held him up. He remembers Jonathan having to help him to stand when the time came. He remembers a shock of red hair and streaming tears from electric blue eyes so like her brother’s even if they were not blood related at all. He remembers squeezing Max’s hand. He remembers that they spoke to each other for not very long, and that most of it was stilted and through quiet sobs, but out of everyone there that day, only they understood what each other was going through. He remembers the way Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan banded together toward the end to get him out of that horrible event without embarrassing himself. He remembers his fingers itching and the inane desire to do something depravedly dramatic, like scream to the heavens in the middle of the short sermon or drape his body over the coffin decorated in lilies and baby’s breath. He didn’t, of course, none of his friends would have let him if he’d tried. But he remembers the desire being there, of wanting to act in such a way that let the world know exactly how he was feeling. Feelings, that even now, he still doesn’t fully understand the depth of. And if he can’t then maybe Billy couldn’t foresee them either.

He can’t get rid of the thought that Billy could possibly think that people wouldn’t mourn him though. That Steve wouldn’t have. Especially when he remembers how Billy was in high school, that swagger as he walked the halls remained after graduation. The community pool was the place to be, to catch a glimpse of the golden god on his throne. Steve hadn’t seen the ridiculousness with his own eyes, but word got around in a small town. It had been annoying in the beginning of summer that no one could knock Billy Hargrove down a peg or three thousand, that people were still fawning all over him. He had all that adoration then, how could he not see how it would translate later? But then again, Max had talked to him about some shit. Perhaps that swagger was really an act. Perhaps he only liked the attention because he couldn’t get the attention he actually desired.

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. This is all conjecture. Maybe none of it is the real reason for the secrecy anyway. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s something so typically Billy that when Steve finally learns it, he will roll his eyes so hard that they will stick that way. But then why would Dustin be on Billy’s side? That more than anything else gives him pause.

The thing is without talking to Billy, Steve will never know for sure. He has to talk to him. He knows he does. But he just doesn’t know what to say. And it feels like if he sees him again all that anger is going to rush forth and they will get nowhere fast. It’s not like they’ve ever been great at communicating with each other before, exactly. The bond between them only further complicates things.

He misses the simplicity of the way things were with Nancy, even if he doesn’t miss being with her anymore. He misses being in love with her but being in control of that emotion. He even misses how when it ended, that it hurt but it didn’t destroy him. With Billy, it hasn’t been like that at all. The depth and weight of every single emotion tied to Billy Hargrove is so intense that he can’t see around it, can’t get a grip on it, and he’s feeling about a million things all at once. It’s too much. It’s overwhelming to the point that he wants to tear his hair out and scream. And he knew that being bonded would mean _more_ in some way, obviously it would have to, because it is just _different,_ but he didn’t realize it could ever be like this.

He shakes off everything and goes back to cleaning the too large house again, not that it needs it, but it gives his hands something to do, putting fresh linens on all the guest beds. It’s nearing Halloween and Joyce had phoned earlier saying that she would be coming into town for the weekend. They always get together around this time of year, the anniversary of everything going to shit the first time. It makes Joyce want to be closer to those she calls family and Steve is selfishly glad for it. He misses her more than he misses his own mother. So, when she let him know that she would be making another visit, he’d offered up his place for them to stay so that they didn’t have to stay at the old house. It would be better for her, he knows, not to have to enter that house where there are so many memories clinging to it like invisible cobwebs. He also gets the benefit of having a full house for a weekend, breathing energy into the place, giving him something else to think about than Billy Hargrove and everything surrounding them.

Later, he goes with Nancy to pick up groceries for the weekend. It feels weirdly normal, even though it’s not at all for either of them. Steve can’t remember the last time he set foot in Bradley’s Big Buy, but it’s been months. The layout is still the same though, so he mostly remembers where everything is. Nancy is next to him, mouth pursed, and eyes narrowly focused on their mission. She’s oddly quiet, like she’s trying to reign something in, happiness that Jonathan is coming down for a visit, if Steve could guess. He doesn’t know why she’s trying to not be obviously happy about that fact. It’s weird and causes things to be strange between them as he waits her out while placing the things on the list in the cart. Enough sodas for an army, chocolate pudding for Dustin, ingredients for a roast dinner that Joyce said she wanted to make. When they get to the frozen aisle, Steve rubs at his chin as he looks at the Eggo display.

“How many boxes of Eggos is too many?” He asks.

“For El?” Nancy snorts. “I think that’s a trick question. Though maybe her algebra teacher has informed her of the concept of infinity.”

“Ten boxes?”

“Steve, they are only here for the weekend.”

“Twenty it is.” He nods and then opens the freezer door, tossing yellow boxes behind him into the cart.

“Steve!” Nancy hisses. “She can’t eat that many, stop.”

“Are you going to be the one to tell her that we are out of Eggos?” He turns and gets close to finish the rest of the words in a whisper only she can hear. _“The teenager who can melt brains with her mind?”_

Nancy laughs at that, grabbing two boxes to put back on the shelf. “She loves us. You especially, after you helped her with Mike that last time. I think three boxes are enough, and if we run out, we can always go buy more. She may be a teenager, but she isn’t unreasonable.”

Steve just hums and allows her to start pushing the cart away from the freezer.

“You wanna talk about it?” Nancy says, bumping into him with her hip.

“Eggos?” He asks, fully aware that’s not what she’s talking about at all. “I mean, personally I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I kinda like those new Toaster Strudels you’ve been buying if we are talking about freezer-based breakfast items, but I’d never dream of telling El that.”

Nancy rolls her eyes. “ _Billy_. You know the kids are trying to concoct something between the two of you, right? I overheard them talking in hushed tones last week when they were over at my house supposedly for a campaign.”

Steve groans. “God tell them not to, would you? And make them actually listen. This shit is enough to deal with without The Party getting involved.”

“You should have thought of that before you befriended Dustin.” Nancy reminds him. “I can tell them to leave you alone, but I don’t think they will. I think Max is in it more for Billy’s sake than yours, honestly.”

“Great.” His entire good mood evaporates in the chill of the freezer aisle.

“You know how to stop them right? Just go talk to him first. Then it’s on your own terms.”

“Except it won’t be. Because now I am forced to try to have a preemptive strike against meddling teenagers.” He grouses.

Nancy does that cute little pout she does when she wants to say something but doesn’t want to be insensitive to his feelings. He knows the look well. He kind of hates that look.

“Spit it out.” He tells her as they turn the corner.

“Well, I thought that…you’d _want_ to talk to him? That you two would be insufferably inseparable by now. The miracle that we all wanted for you has happened, he’s back.” And Nancy keeps prattling on about all the reasons she thought Steve would be over the moon and so ridiculously in love with Billy, but Steve stops listening. Not because he’s tired of hearing her talk or is even annoyed at what she’s saying, but because there at the end of the aisle, Billy stands with his own cart parked near his hip, leaning on his cane as he reads the back of a green box of something in his hands. He’s not close enough to hear what Nancy is saying, they are nearly at the opposite ends of it from each other and Nancy is being quiet with her words. But he’s _there_. He’s right there and Steve can see him even if Billy hasn’t noticed them yet. _Holy shit._

“I have to…I have to _go._ Here.” He hands Nancy his wallet, shoving it in her hands as she blinks up at him in confusion. “I can’t do this right now. I’ll meet you in the car.” He hurriedly whispers and then bolts in the opposite direction, weaving his way around and out of the store to put as much space between him and Billy as he can, even though it makes something in his bones ache to do it.

It certainly isn’t his proudest moment, that’s for damn sure. But he didn’t expect to see Billy there. The reality of it, that it could just happen like that now, had hit him so fast that he didn’t know what to do other than leave. The thought of small talk and pleasantries makes him sick when there is so much else they need to discuss. What he has to say, he doesn’t want an audience for. Steve sits in the beamer with his face in his hands. His stomach churns, acidic and yet empty, while his muscles tremble with the need to go back into the store, to cross however many feet stand between him and his soulmate. His very lips tingle with it too, which is certainly new.

When Nancy does come out, he gets out and helps her load the trunk. He knows that she knows why he ran. He also knows that she isn’t saying a word until the doors are shut and he’s pulling out of the parking lot. That doesn’t stop her glancing over at him now and then as he hurries to shove as many bags as quickly into the trunk as possible. Hopefully he’s not squishing a loaf of bread or something, but at this point he kind of doesn’t care even if he is. He can feel the red flush that takes over his cheeks without his permission, which only makes him work faster to get the fuck out of here.

Once they are done and they are indeed in the car and pulling out of the parking lot when Nancy turns her tiny body in the passenger seat to look at him fully, which is embarrassing. “You ran _away?_ ”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Nance.”

“But, Steve.”

He pulls up to the stop light and takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out through his mouth, hands clenched at ten and two on the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles are white. “Please? Please can we not do this now?”

“No.” She says, because of course she does. He’s not sure if he knows a more stubborn person on this planet than Nancy Wheeler. “ _You_ need to talk to someone about it, Steve, even if you refuse to talk to him.”

“I can’t.” He shakes his head.

“Well, that’s unfortunate, cause we are, right now.” She even crosses her arms and he wishes he wasn’t driving.

“I have talked about it, by the way. To Robin. Even to Dustin, although that wasn’t my intention, but he sort of ambushed me.”

“Yeah, well they aren’t here and I am, and I just witnessed one of the bravest men I have ever known, tuck tail and run away from his soulmate. Might I add that maybe, _just maybe_ , I do actually know a little bit of what you are going through? Just a bit, a small portion. Or have you forgotten that I bonded with Jonathan?” And oh, she is angry. He hadn’t expected that.

“I…”

“Yes, you. I know, believe me darling, _I know,_ how hard it’s been for you. I watched you go through it. I wanted more than anything to be able to bring you just a little bit of comfort during the worst of it. Steve, I _love_ you, and this time I think I have the proper understanding of _how_ to love you. I want you to be happy and I know how complicated that happiness is going to be for you, and I need you to know that I am here, and I _get it._ So please, _please,_ tell me what is going on.”

It takes a minute. He drives down Main and turns onto Turtle Creek, making his way to Loch Nora, before he says another word. “I _love_ him and I _hate_ him so much I could scream.” He grounds out, hands gripping the wheel. “Nancy, I need him so bad I ache.” The omission itself feels like it has been pulled from his marrow. 

“Good.” She encourages and he wants to laugh. Not the healthy kind of laughter but the kind he does when everything is absolutely going to shit and that’s the only thing he can do. Because this whole thing? It’s the worst. It’s the worst and best of him and it’s going to kill him and make him want to live again, and how does that make any sense to anyone. But it seems to make sense to her.

“Did you know,” she starts again, “how hard it was to break up with you?”

“What?”

“Steve, I never… I did love you, so much.” She admits. He takes a breath. They don’t talk about stuff like this. They tip toe around their history. They always have. “And I do love you now, but it’s different. But Jonathan? That wasn’t in my _plan._ Anymore than Billy was in yours.”

“I didn’t have a plan.” He corrects, because he didn’t. He wanted certain things, but that doesn’t make plans. Plans are something his father wanted him to make. Plans are adult. Plans are responsible. He just blindly walked into all of this.

“Yes, you did.” She snorts. “Your plan was me.”

“My plan was you when I was trying to appease my father. When I cared about what _they_ told me a Harrington should care about. But I was failing at that even when we were together.” He says and it’s true. 

“Steve.” Her tiny hand comes up to cup his cheek and all of the sudden he feels like crying. “You weren’t. You…I _let_ you believe a lot of things because it made me feel better about my decisions at that time, but you never failed me. You _were_ a great boyfriend. But it was Jonathan who was my soulmate. This Billy thing? He’s it for you and you are it for him. The second you both get over yourselves and figure that out? The better for you both.”

Steve sighs, feeling the weight of her words weighing him down as he turns on his street. “I need him Nancy. But how to I reconcile that need with the fact that he’s hurt me more than anyone else has? How do I stay me in all of this?”

Nancy leans in, resting her head on his shoulder and a small part of him revels in that closeness. At one time it had been them against the world and now it’s different and yet they are both still in each other’s corners.

“You haven’t been you since July. The bond changes all of that. What I think you need to do and what I know that you know you need to do is talk to him. But more than that? Steve, _touch him._ Touch him, hold him, prove to yourself that he’s alive. He may act tough but even Billy fucking Hargrove feels this too. He has the bondmark to prove it, same as you.”

That, more than anything, settles his anxiety. He’s not alone. Not in any of it. Never for a moment. That’s what being bonded means. Even in this fucked up sense of bonded that Steve never factored in. He’s never alone.

“Thank you.” He says and its shaky but true.

“Anytime.” She promises. “I want the best for you, Steve. I always have.”

It’s the weekend and his house is full to the brim with people he loves. He has already taken two Advil to combat what is sure to be nonstop noise from The Party. He also hasn’t been able to stop smiling since Mrs. Wheeler, Mrs. Henderson, and Mrs. Sinclair had come in to the chaos and extracted Joyce out of it. She’d made a few protests in the process, but he told her that he had it covered and that she should go and have fun. Lord knows she needs it.

“When is Max going to be here?” El asks and Dustin shrugs.

“She said she was going to be a bit late. She had to go with her brother to his appointment before he could drop her off.” Lucas says. The kid is staring right at Steve when he says it, about as subtle as a brick to the face. Steve tries not to feel the butterflies that immediately spring to life at the mention of Max’s brother, tries not to wonder at what sort of appointment he could have nearing five pm on a Friday.

He’s successfully forgotten all about that though, when the boys get into a spat over which campaign to run tonight and Mike gestures wildly, knocking his cherry coke off of the coffee table and onto the floor. He has to go up to the second floor to get a few towels to blot up the mess, and spends extra time rummaging around in the linen closet trying to find the not white ones to do the job. When he comes back down Max is there, tucked in between Lucas and El on the couch. El blinks at him owlishly as he blots up the mess while she eats her Twizzlers. He’s not sure if it is relief he feels that he missed Billy dropping Max off, or disappointment, but the unnamable feeling causes him to hitch his shoulders up around his ears while he works at what is surely going to stain his mother’s precious carpet.

He’s got the sodden towel in his hands while he orders pizza for everyone, mind focused on how many sausages, how many pepperonis, and that he gets at least one with veggies because both El and Max had informed him before he walked off that they were vegetarians now, thank you very much. He’s probably ordered too much pizza to be honest, but its fine. It will keep in the fridge and eventually get eaten. He’s so focused on that, on the itemized list running through his head of what he needs to get done now that people are here so that he can play host for the weekend that he breezes into the den and tosses the towel in the laundry room and is just about to step back into the chaos when the door slams shut in his face of its own accord. There is the metal click of the lock sliding into place. He’s sure that out there in the living room where all the teenagers are gathered around, El has a tiny trickle of blood coming out of her nose.

Even though he heard the lock click, he still tries the door, like an idiot. When the door handle doesn’t give way, he pounds on the door. “Hey! This isn’t funny. Let me out El.” He yells loud enough to be heard through the noise on the other side of the door. “Guys my wallet is in my pocket, so if you want pizza, you better let me out of here before the delivery guy shows up! Guys?” Without permission his heartrate kicks up just a bit. This is a joke, it has to be, but that doesn’t change the panic that is starting to itch under his skin as seconds tick away and he’s locked inside his own den while a houseful of teenagers are left unattended. “Guys! Let me out! Dustin!” He screams.

“Didn’t realize you hated me so much, Harrington.” A voice drawls behind him and Steve very nearly leaps out of his skin, lurching so hard that his arm smacks against the wooden door as he twists to stare into the dim light of the den. This. Isn’t. Happening.

But it is. Billy Hargrove sits without a care in the world, sprawled slightly as if the easy chair is a throne made for him. Golden light from the single lamp nearest to him spilling over the jeans and black hoodie that he’d been wearing the last time he saw him. The light catches in his curls. Steve didn’t even realize there had been someone else in here with him, much less Billy. His back is pressed against the door as he swallows at the sight, mouth suddenly dry.

“What?” is all he can manage, and it’s shaky at best.

“You heard me. I mean I knew you hated me, don’t get me wrong, I’m not an idiot.” Billy says. His voice is as calm as cool water and that only irritates Steve more.

“I don’t hate you.” Steve spits.

“Oh? So, telling me to get out of your house was just how you treat people you like? Interesting.” He hasn’t moved from his sprawl, but he raises his eyebrows and nods a bit. Steve wants to punch him. He also wants to kiss him.

“Why do you always have to be such an asshole?” He says, more to himself than anything else.

“Because I am, baby.” Billy says and the tone is mocking, but that doesn’t change the way Steve’s stomach flips at the term of endearment. “One of these days you are going to have to admit to yourself that you like it, at least a little bit.” He smiles and his teeth glint in the low light. Steve _hates_ him.

“You know what I don’t like?” Steve snaps, stalking closer. “That I bonded to an asshole who thought it was _just fine_ to let me go on grieving his death _when he didn’t really die._ Fuck you for that. Fuck you for what you put me through.”

Billy just grins like seeing Steve riled up is the best part of his day. If their senior year was anything to go by, it just might be. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. There. That make it better? Or do you need a kiss?”

“ _Fuck. You.”_ Steve snarls. He’s about three feet away from Billy and he just stops. He groans loud and his hands itch to tug at his hair, or maybe to punch Billy right in the face, he can’t be sure. Then he shakes his head and straightens his spine, letting all of that rage tumble off of him like fallen leaves. “I don’t know what I expected.” He starts and then shakes his head again. “I’m not doing this.” And then turns and walks to the furthest corner of the den from Billy and sits down on the floor, tucking his knees to his chest.

“Too bad, you know both Max and little Janey aren’t about to let us out of here until we talk. So you might as well scream at me. Let it all out. Tell me what an asshole I am.”

“I don’t want to do that, Billy.” He snaps, glaring at him over his knees. “God, what about that are you not getting? I don’t…I don’t want _this.”_ He says gesturing between them, and he doesn’t imagine the look of hurt that crosses Billy’s face before that smirk slips back into place.

“Why do you think I stayed away?” Billy asks, and it’s mean and vicious. Like Billy is trying to hurt him with his voice alone. “I knew you didn’t fucking want this.”

“That’s not what I meant! I mean this fighting. I meant me being so angry at you that I can’t see straight, so…so hurt. God.” He covers his eyes with his hand and leans forward on his knees. He knew it would end like this, he knew, but he still didn’t want it.

There are a few moments of silence, where the only thing Steve can hear is the sound of his own breathing and his heartbeat drumming in his ears, and then, “I am sorry.” Billy says, and this time it isn’t mocking. It’s quiet and full of sincerity. When Steve doesn’t move or respond, he continues. “I didn’t know that it would—that you would be—I didn’t know. I wanted to give you an out.”

“An out for what, Billy?” Steve asks, voice as quiet as Billy’s had been. Like they are sharing secrets. And he has to know so badly that the need is caught in his throat, nearly choking him.

“I’m not who I was, Steve.” Billy admits. “I’m not…” Steve watches as his tongue flicks out and licks at his lower lip. “I’m fucked up, more so than I was before. I don’t sleep. I’m can barely walk.” He swallows thickly and looks away and down somewhere around his knees, as if admitting this and looking Steve in the eyes as he does it costs him too much. “I have scars. I didn’t want that for you.”

“Who are you to make that decision for me?” Steve asks. “I would have given anything, _anything,_ to have known that you survived. I haven’t _lived_ since July. I haven’t taken a breath that hasn’t _hurt._ I _needed you_ and it didn’t matter, it would never have mattered to me what shape you were in. How could you think I would care about that?”

Billy scoffs, but there’s a tremble in his lower lip. “Don’t you get it? You’re bonded to a cripple!” He snarls.

“Better a cripple than a corpse!” And Steve hauls himself to his feet, eating up the space between them until he is looming over Billy. “You have no idea what losing you did to me. I wanted to die right alongside you. I gladly would have. There were days— _weeks_ —when I didn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t eat. _Look at me.”_ He growls, because he knows that he’s lost a good twenty pounds since July and it wasn’t like he had a whole lot to spare anyway, he’s always been lean and now he’s more so. “I don’t care that you aren’t where you once were. You’re _alive!_ That’s all I ever needed you to be. The other shit? Yeah, I’m fucked up too, we all are. All I ever needed or wanted was you.”

Billy is looking up at him in awe with wet lashes. He licks his lips again and reaches out, lacing his fingers with Steve’s and Steve can’t help the full body shiver that goes through him at the contact. He’s needed that so badly. “You mean it, Pretty Boy?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, nodding. His throat hurts like he might cry, but he’s not angry anymore, or sad, or anything but happy for the first time in so long he forgot what it felt like. “Yeah, I do.”

Billy tugs on his hand and Steve goes easy, bending down to hover over Billy’s mouth. And with one last exhale of relief, he presses his lips to Billy’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so caught up in school and work that I haven't had a chance to write in too long. I got to the halfway point which was the average length of a chapter I've been putting out so far and could have left it there, but I was too greedy to get to the good part, so I just continued on writing. I hope you guys enjoyed the extra long chapter and what all it entails.


	6. From Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, Steve had game. Now he's just awkward, but so is Billy.

Steve melts into the kiss, his entire body singing with it. Billy’s lips are plush and soft, and his mouth tastes faintly of mint and something else that he can’t quite identify but is addicting all the same. He leans into it, hand coming up to cup the back of Billy’s head, to rest his fingers where curls used to be. Billy moans and suddenly Steve has his knee up and he’s climbing onto Billy’s lap without even the thought to do so. Billy’s hands feel warm on his hips where his shirt has hiked up just a little. His thumb presses circles into the mark and Steve shudders.

The thing is, Steve loves kissing. It’s a thing he knows he’s good at. And over the course of his life he’s had good kisses and terrible ones, ones that hurt him to think about later, and ones that until July could still leave him feeling hot under the collar if he thought about them very closely. With the exception of one drunken escapade, he’s only ever experienced kissing girls. It’s not as different as he thought it would be, but maybe that’s because he’s finally kissing the person made for him. Billy’s got a bit of stubble on his upper lip and chin but it isn’t something Steve exactly minds. Especially not when Billy puts those teeth to good use and nips at his lower lip, causing Steve to gasp. This is, hands down, the best kiss of his life. He could go on kissing Billy forever, it feels like, and he’d never be tired of it.

Billy pulls back and there’s a second there where they are just sharing each other’s air and Steve can’t stop looking into Billy’s eyes. They aren’t just electric blue, like he thought, but there’s a bit of yellow and even some green in there too. A tiny dot of red just on the left side of his left iris. They are perhaps the best eyes to get lost in, in Steve’s humble opinion, biases be damned. And they are framed by the most ridiculously long lashes he’s ever seen on any person. Its more than a bit stupid really, how pretty they are. But then again everything about Billy is pretty, _beautiful,_ when Steve thinks about it. Even the new haircut which is taking some getting used to, only serves to make him more so.

“I’m sorry.” Billy whispers. “I’m so,” he pauses, gasping for breath a little, “sorry, Stevie.”

“Shut up.” Steve says and then seals their mouths together again. He doesn’t want to hear it just now. Hearing it before was enough and he just wants to focus on this. Focus on the way his body thrums at the way Billy holds him, at the way his tongue laps into his mouth, at the very new way that he can feel Billy getting hard in his jeans under him. Which is exciting in its own right.

When Billy pulls away again he doesn’t try to speak this time, instead he turns his head and presses a kiss to the side of Steve’s neck. It’s closed lipped at first but then he opens his mouth and licks at the sensitive skin there, presses his teeth down a little, and Steve? Steve makes a sound he doesn’t think he’s ever made before. It’s breathy and a bit thin, wanton. He digs his fingers into Billy’s shoulders and drops his head to the side to give Billy more access because that alone has his toes curling and his hips stuttering to move and grind where he sits on Billy. 

When their mouths connect again its hungrier and urgent. Steve is full on writhing on top of Billy and Billy’s hands are everywhere. The desperation is clear in every movement. The need that’s driving them both on becomes more insistent with each passing second. They are drawing closer and closer to a thing that seems off in the horizon, both are going on instinct alone and neither one seem very keen on stopping any time soon.

The doorbell rings and its like being plunged in ice water.

Steve pulls back, rests his forehead on Billy’s as they both gasp for air. “Fuck.” He says.

“I don’t wanna let you go.” Billy says and Steve doesn’t imagine the whine in his voice as he tightens his grip on Steve’s hips as if to reinforce that point. To be entirely fair, it is a point that Steve not only agrees with but is having a hard time arguing against. At least until the door behind him opens with a slow creak.

“Steve? Oh, uh…” Dustin says, and it’s followed by either Max or El’s giggles.

“I _told_ you this would work, pay up Lucas.” Max says after.

“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that you bet on if he would forgive me, you little twerp.” Billy growls, head tilted to the side so that he can see past Steve.

“It wasn’t an _if_ it was a _when_ and _how_ sort of bet Billy, and get over it.” She quips back. Steve is picturing that she’s got her hip cocked to the side and everything, that El is watching her with a bit of awe in her eyes. He knows he’s not wrong, but he’s not going to turn around to check either. His cheeks feel as if they are on fire.

“Um, can we hurry up whatever this is? There’s a guy at the door with a stack of pizzas expecting to be paid, Steve.” Mike says.

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve says, standing up and with a quick and well practiced flick of his fingers, hides the hard on that was moments ago tenting his dockers. He untucks his polo for good measure. He’s pretty sure he’s blushing down to his chest. Even the tips of his ears are hot. It doesn’t help that Billy is staring up at him like _that,_ as if he can see through every stitch of clothing Steve is wearing.

Before he turns around, Billy shifts, hiding himself too. His face carefully devoid of emotion, embarrassment at being caught or otherwise. Which is just insufferable, in Steve’s opinion. And he knows, _knows_ , that every attempt to camouflage the situation and pretend that what the kids walked in on was more innocent than it was, is pointless. All the boys at this point are well versed in concealment of awkward boners, he’s pretty sure Max knows too. El is the only hope for innocence here, but it’s only a matter of time before Max explains it to her. Which is just…fantastic.

Steve shakes himself and then turns and brushes past the snickering teenagers at the door of the den, to get to his front door and pay for pizza. Being caught is doing a lot for killing the swell of lust that had been swimming in his system moments ago, but it’s still there, tucked up under his ribs. It’s almost novel in it’s appearance. He’s got to hand it to Nancy, she was right. All he needed to do to really remember how to live was touch Billy, and it’s like his entire body came back online for the first time since July 4th.

He pays the kid at the door. In his distracted haste tips him triple what he normally would have, because he’s not thinking and the guy also had to wait. Then takes the stack of boxes into the kitchen before yelling at the kids to come and get it, carefully tiptoeing around the minor stampede that emerges, salivating teenagers with minds on their bellies and the weird moment with their babysitter seeming totally forgotten in the wake of greasy cheese and a wide variety of toppings. Steve can only hope, anyway. When Billy isn’t a part of the whole thing, Steve shuffles off to find him, exactly where he left him, secluded in the den staring at a framed blown up family portrait that Steve hates.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, trying to distract Billy from the thing. He wants…well, he wants a lot of things, and none of them end with explaining exactly why he hates that picture in particular.

Billy shrugs, pinching at the denim near his knee and tugging it down. If Steve didn’t know any better, he’d say that Billy looks nervous. Which is an odd thought, considering how brash and full of bravado Billy’s always been. It doesn’t line up with the Billy that he’s always known.

“You okay?”

“I think I’m gunna go home. I let Max talk me into staying, but… You’ve got them to deal with and I’ll just be in your hair.” Billy mumbles, running a hand through his curls. Despite his words, he hasn’t moved to get out of his seat.

“Oh.” Steve says, trying for cool and nonchalant and totally tanking it. He can hear the disappointment that is thick in his voice with just that one little word. And it’s stupid, it’s all so dumb, this acting thing that they are doing, awkward and unsure, when really, if Steve thinks about it, he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. “Actually, you should stay.” And Billy looks at him as if suddenly he’s speaking in another language. “I want you to stay.”

“Okay.” Billy nods, eyes wide as he stares at Steve.

Steve crosses over to him with his hand outstretched, and Billy takes it, allowing Steve to pull him to his feet.

Steve’s pretty sure that along with a bet, Max must have strong armed everyone into leaving them alone. In fact it might have been downright awkward, not being included in the discussion at hand, except he thinks that it’s more comfortable this way for Billy. Billy is free to observe the chaos without being drawn into it, and by extension, Steve as well. It’s sort of novel. Not that Billy is observing anything other than the slice of pepperoni he claimed and Steve’s hand, and sometimes his face. For part of the meal, Steve at least tries to keep abreast of what the kids are concocting, but once he’s done with his first slice, he stops trying. Everything they are talking about goes over his head anyway, and after all, Billy being alive and in his living room is far more interesting than any game of Dungeons and Dragons ever played. It is a fact he would go to war with Dustin over. He’d win it too.

Within the confines of the group, it’s interesting to watch this new Billy. Not that the Billy he went to high school with would have been enjoying himself in this scenario, but he wouldn’t be doing what he is now, either. The Billy he went to high school with would have done whatever he could to appear not only comfortable in any given situation, but like he was born to fill the space of the room. No one would have been able to ignore his presence. And it’s not like Steve can, now, because Billy is the only thing he’s truly focusing on. But, everyone else seems to be able to after a few minutes. Billy looks nervous with his back hunched slightly and his head tipped down, those beautiful blue eyes flicking up every few seconds.

“Hey,” Steve says quietly as he gently grazes his fingers over the back of Billy’s hand.

“Hey yourself, Pretty Boy.”

“Thank you for staying. I, uh, missed you?” It comes out like a question and Steve’s cheeks that had only recently calmed down, feel like they are flaring back to life with that awkward truth hanging in the air.

“I missed you too.” Billy whispers, eyes flicking down and away. “It’s why I came back. I mean yeah for Max too I guess, but.” And it’s tentative and slow, the way his hand twists and creeps to lace his fingers with Steve’s.

The game goes on, young teens ignoring their babysitter and his newly returned to life bonded on the couch, holding hands and blushing like they’ve never done things like this before. But this is where Steve exists in this moment. In the space between two palms, in the sensation of calloused finger tips on the backs of his knuckles, in furtive glances with hopeful eyes. Even though it is in the depths of fall turning into winter, it feels like spring. 

Hours later, Billy yawns and the kids are looking pretty tired as well. El and Max are asleep curled against each other on cushions by the fireplace, the boys are much less rowdy than they were starting out. Joyce has returned, Steve suspected that she was more than a little bit drunk, and had been tucked into one of the guest rooms that was next to the one Will and Mike had claimed earlier. Steve bites his lip, running his teeth over the delicate skin there. The thought of Billy walking out the door to go home for the night is something he doesn’t want to think about, but he wonders if it is too soon to invite him to stay the night. Normally he’d have been able to offer a guest bedroom, but all of those are taken in the wake of The Party and Joyce. He could offer Billy his bed and sleep on the couch or the floor. It would certainly be the gentlemanly thing to do, expected even. But the thought of sharing a bed with Billy is a tempting thought. Especially after their reunion in the den. Not that they could get frisky now, with a full house. It wouldn’t be right. But Billy would be _the_ warm body next to him that he’s desired since July.

He's just gotta ask. It’s one little question. It shouldn’t be difficult, and yet it feels like there are about a thousand butterflies taking up residence in his stomach. Put a fucking monster from the Upside Down in front of him and he feels nothing but the sheer determination to get from one moment to the next, stick Billy Hargrove in front of him and Steve doesn’t know what to do. Or well, he does, but he’s terrified to do it, feels tongue tied and stupid. It’s like he’s looking at the old Billy, worried that he’s going to get punched for saying the wrong thing. He very well might, he doesn’t know how much Billy has changed, though he’s gotten a hint of it tonight. A hint that he is hopelessly addicted to. He needs more of it, more of Billy, and the truth of it is, he’s desperate to say anything to make that happen.

“Hey,” he whispers, leaning close enough that he can feel the warmth radiating off Billy on his cheeks and the tip of his nose. “If I asked you to stay the night, would you?”

“That depends, you askin’?” There’s a hint of a smirk, a hint of the old Billy. But there’s something in his eyes that Steve’s only caught a glimpse of and it is intoxicating, something he doesn’t even have a word for.

“I am.” Steve says, and has to take a breath.

Billy’s eyes flick to the kids and then upstairs. “Yeah sure, but we are putting the girls in the room closest to yours. You may trust these boys, but I don’t.”

A sort of soft breathless laugh leaves his lips. “They know the rules of my house, Billy. You don’t have to worry.”

“I mean it.” Billy says, and looks it. “I wasn’t fucking around when I said that I don’t sleep. I mean I do, in fits and starts. A creaking floorboard, the squeak of a door opening? I’ll wake up. I need to know that my sister is safe if we stay here, and I do want to stay.”

“Yeah, okay, sure. Let’s, uh, get the girls to bed and leave the boys to it.”

Getting the girls awake enough to make it upstairs was, well Steve supposes the word ‘interesting’ would suffice. Max jerks awake pretty quickly with a prod, sleepily untangling herself from El, who just nuzzles deeper into the cushions until Steve shakes her again more forcefully. She blinks up at him, a wrinkle forming in between her brows as she lets out a sleepy groan.

“Happy, Steve?” She asks softly.

“Yeah, I am. Let’s get you to bed, okay?”

“Okay.”

Billy and Steve follow the girls up the stairs, and Steve tries to act normal as he tucks them into the room across from his while Billy’s lean form fills the doorframe. He’s so fucking distracting, but then again, Steve guesses that’s to be expected. He goes back to his room and tugs off one of the blankets, folding it to lay on the floor.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Billy asks.

“Making a pallet on the floor?” Steve says.

Billy tucks his chin down as he chuckles. It might be the cutest thing Steve’s ever seen him do, even if he _is_ laughing at him. “Stevie, get in the bed.” And though it’s light, his tone brokers no argument, so he does.

Steve blinks up at the ceiling, once, twice, three times, and then shifts, shoving his body across the few inches separating them until he stops with his head tucked into Billy’s shoulder with his nose grazing his jaw.

“Took you long enough.” Billy whispers, husky into the night. But his arms still fold in around Steve, enveloping him in warmth. He still makes a contented sound deep in his throat once he’s gotten comfortable with their legs tangled together. It feels like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on tumblr, same user name.


	7. Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback from Billy's point of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be sad and painful and I would say that I am sorry, but... It needed to be done. This whole writing experience has been a shift for me. I am not usually a pantser when writing on my own, but I decided I wanted to try with this one. I had all of these ideas about only showing Steve's perspective in things, and I wanted to start focusing on the happy lovey dovey bullshit... But with the state of the world right now, I just could not make that happen. Plus, I like writing Billy too and that was sorely lacking in this fic. So. Have some sadboy Billy hours.

**Five Weeks Ago...**

_**Billy** _

_He’s leaning against the side of the Camaro, metal cool and firm against his backside. The air is crisp and grass dewy in the early morning, asphalt firm beneath his feet as he takes a drag off of his morning cigarette and secretly relishes the fact that this morning he gets to witness his favorite sight in the world. Max hadn’t dragged her ass so he’s there just in time to watch the Beamer pull up. He’d know that deep maroon paint job and the rich kid driving it at any angle._

_He fights to keep the smirk on his face as he watches Steve get out of the car, all long limbs and hair perfectly in place. Hottest guy in Hawkins by far, the only one who’s been able to truly catch his eye. What he would give to properly wreck his world. But Steve is still caught up in Wheeler, and there’s no way he’d choose Billy for that privilege anyway. It’s just a comforting thought that keeps him sane through the worst of Neil’s rage. The fact that dear old dad moved the entire family out to backwoods Indiana to scare Billy straight, only for Billy to fall for Steve Harrington. It’s poetic really. Billy’s broken in ways good old fashioned fear and violence can’t fix, but he pretends anyway. He’s gone on dates with girls, hell he’s even flirted with Wheeler’s mother just to lay some ground work and make his dad think he’s learned his lesson. He hasn’t. He won’t. But Neil doesn’t have to know that. It’s much easier if he thinks that the patented Hargrove conversion therapy worked and he’s normal now._

_He sucks in a sharp breath through his nose and forces the smirk to remain instead of turn into a dopey lovesick smile as Steve ambles his way, Trapper Keeper nearly slipping from his grip halfway and caught around his knees before it can fall on the ground. Some papers are still dangerously close to spilling out. Honestly, the boy is a mess, Billy doesn’t understand why he finds it so endearing. It’s gotta be those damn doe eyes of his. Steve certainly can’t write his way out of a paper bag and he’s abysmal when it comes to history, so it’s not like it’s an intellectual thing. Which is not to say Steve’s stupid, cause he’s not, and he will fuck up anyone who says otherwise. He laid out Tommy H a month ago for doing just that, among other things. Fucker never knows when to shut his damn mouth._

_His thoughts are still tangling around unpleasant memories when Steve yanks him forcefully from them with just a few words._

_“Hey, did you hear about the party at Brad’s this weekend? You gunna go?” Steve asks and Billy tries not to be obvious when he inhales Steve’s scent, intoxicating as it is. Billy’s sort of narrowed it down to Polo cologne and tide laundry detergent. It smells better when they are playing ball, if he’s honest. Body heat and sweat mixing in with it. Plus Billy can usually get close enough to smell the honeyed wheat scent of his shampoo as well._

_“Thinkin’ about it. Thought partying wasn’t your scene anymore, Pretty Boy?” He drawls, leaning back a bit and taking another drag from his smoke. He lets it out through his nose to burn away the scent of Harrington so that something else doesn’t become obvious as well._

_Steve huffs a laugh. “Yeah, not lately, but what was it that you said not too long ago? Plenty of bitches in the sea? Maybe I should make it my scene again.”_

_“Aww, you listened to my words of wisdom. I’m flattered.” Billy purrs. He’s not. Harrington changing his pattern now means that he’s probably trying to get over Wheeler by getting a leg over on any of the other bitches in their class. Meaning Billy is going to have to watch him flirt with girls. Flirt and maybe score. Most of the chicks in their class haven’t forgotten about King Steve, no matter what Tommy likes to say. The fact that he showed that he was capable of love and heartbreak made him even more of a commodity, not that Steve paid a lick of attention to it. But maybe that was about to change. Fuck._

_“I would like to see you there if you are going.” Steve says and there’s something there in his voice that Billy can’t quite make out._

_“Well as long as I am not on Max duty, I should be able to make an appearance.”_

_Steve nudges him. “I can get Max a sleepover with the chief’s daughter, which would get you out of the thing.”_

_“No shit? Well, well, well, Harrington. Consider it a date then.” The words fly out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop them, but he holds firm to the smirk and devil may care attitude even while his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest and land in Harrington’s pile of schoolbooks._

_“Will do,” Steve grins and Billy can’t help but swallow so hard his throat clicks. There’s no way… “I’ll see you in second period.” He waves and then he’s gone, well before Billy can even get his thoughts back in order._

_The warning bell chimes and Billy closes his eyes and groans._

_It’s one of those smooth transitions that doesn’t trigger any notice within him, though it should by now. One moment he was leaning against his car on a cool and crisp spring day, boots firm against the asphalt. The next, he’s moving and the air is humid and sun warmed. He can feel the sweat slicking his skin, the churn of acid in his stomach, the bitter tang of bleach on the back of his tongue, and there’s a whisper in his mind that shouldn’t be there. A voice telling him all of this horrible shit while he slowly loses his mind and control of his own body. He’s not in charge anymore, that much is clear. It isn’t even him telling his feet to put one in front of the other. He’s too submerged to even really focus on his surroundings. He can feel weight in his arms, and that his body is moving without his control, which means he knows where this is going. He doesn’t want to surface. Doesn’t want to face what is happening again. But in a way he knows he has to. He has to bear witness to what his body is doing without his permission. To hold a silent vigil locked inside his mind for the victims of the shadowed voice in his mind controlling him like a puppet. He wishes he were strong enough to stop it. He wishes he was good. He’s not though._

_It isn’t until he surfaces enough to blink back the fog and see what’s in his arms that he really starts to panic. Because, while yeah this is terrible and sad and he wants no part in it at all, he’s only known one or two of them. But this? This is his worst fucking nightmare. He wants to vomit. Wants to scream. Wants to beg the voice to take anyone else instead._

_Because who is in his arms is none other than Steve Harrington, in his stupidly sexy sailor outfit, gagged and unconscious, cradled in his arms._

_He scrambles around in his mind like a crazed prisoner rattling the bars. Tries to force his feet to stop moving. Tries to even drop Steve. But all of it is no use. He’s walking ever closer to the steel mill. Just five more steps and he will be inside it and taking slow methodical steps down the metal stairs, where the stench of dust and fetid rot and chemicals is the worst. Where he will lose everything that makes Steve Steve. He’s going to have to watch it happen. He’d rather die._

_He can’t choke out a sob, but his eyes spill over anyway, blurring his vision as hot tears fall unhindered down his already sweaty cheeks. The voice inside his head coos something at him, but he is too consumed by guilt and grief to notice the words. He bends mechanically, setting Steve on the dingy floor, hands immediately going to work on his binds and gag. Steve blinks awake at this, those beautiful doe eyes rolling in their sockets as he tries to focus on what’s in front of him._

_“Billy?”_

_Billy’s body leans in closer, until Steve’s hair is tickling his nose. The whisper that is forced out of his mouth is his voice, but it did not come from him. “Just be still. It will all be over soon.”_

_“Billy what’s going on? Let me help you. This isn’t you.”_

_His arm yanks back, hand tightening into a fist, muscles tensed to spring. Billy can’t take this anymore. He really can’t. With every ounce of strength he has, he throws it into forcing everything to stop. What happens is that he screams._

_“No no no no no no no!” Over and over again, loud, at the top of his fucking lungs until his throat feels like it’s going to shred completely._

He jerks awake still screaming. Pain like fire lancing up both of his sides and coalescing in his chest. It takes longer than it should for him to recognize the white walls in the dim light. He takes maybe three gulps of air and then he is lurching up, left hand scrambling for the light pink plastic kidney shaped dish. And then he’s retching into it, bringing up last nights dinner, bile, and misery.

He wishes he was dead. He should have died back on the fourth of July.

He has only just caught his breath when Beth breezes in. She’s his favorite nurse, but truth be told, he likes all of them. It took a bit to get used to their help, but they are all very nice. Even Anthony who comes on Tuesday and Thursday morning rounds. Billy is not an easy patient to deal with, he knows, but somehow they make him feel cared for and not helpless, even though he practically is right now. Dr. Owens and the two in physical therapy get the brunt of his rudeness though. However, after the nightmare and violent awakening, he doesn’t want to deal with her right now. He just wants to be left alone.

“Can you please just go?” He rasps.

“Now, you know I can’t do that, darlin’. Besides are you going to hobble over to take care of that mess yourself? I don’t think so.” She manages a no nonsense tone but keeps it kind at the same time. Motherly. He whimpers as the ache in his chest and ribs throb and burn.

Beth helps him get a sip of water to rinse his mouth out, and then she puts on a set of gloves to take care of the pink dish, putting a fresh one on the tray. She comes back and checks his temperature, blood pressure, and stitches. They will have to be redone when Dr. Owens gets in, but for now she rebandages his torso and once all of that’s done, the gloves come off. She hands him one of the small grape juice cups she had stashed in the pocket of her scrubs because she knows it’s his favorite. It goes a long way to getting the nasty taste out of his mouth. When he leans back in his bed, she starts combing her fingers through his sweaty hair.

“Same nightmare, baby?”

“Different.” He grunts. “Worse.”

“Poor thing, you barely sleep as is.”

He knows. They all do. Being awake isn’t peachy by any means, his body aches sometimes so bad that screams get caught in his teeth, and even though they bring books for him to read and some of them will sit and play cards with him, he still gets bored as fuck. But when he finally allows himself to drift off to sleep, his mind wreaks havoc on him. The dreams and nightmares are usually worse after therapy. Dr. Owens is trying to get him to understand that none of this was his fault, but it’s hard to believe that. Talking about it seems to invite his demons out to play. When he isn’t dreaming of killing an entire town or that slithering voice in his head that could control his body, he dreams of Steve. Those dreams make his heart ache for what can never be. Steve deserves the world, and Billy’s thought that for a while, well before some sort of interdimensional monster turned his life upside down, he doesn’t deserve the mess that Billy has become. He doesn’t want to put that on Steve. That wouldn’t be honoring him. There’s a mark on Billy’s hip that serves as a reminder that Steve Harrington will be honored above everything, even Billy’s own longing.

If Steve thinks he’s dead then he can move on, find someone else, literally anyone else, and have a better life than the one Billy could offer him. But that doesn’t mean that Billy doesn’t think about him often. He does. To a near obsessive degree. He just doesn’t voice that hardly ever. Not even to Beth who’s fingers are still combing through his hair as she hums. It feels nice. It makes him miss his mom.

When tears finally make their way down his cheeks because he’s missing Steve and missing his mom, maybe even Max too, Beth doesn’t mention it. She never does. He’s thankful for it. A deep breath shudders through him and he leans into her as much as he can on the hospital bed. 

“How’s the pain?” She asks after a while.

It makes him breathe a sigh, not of relief, but of acceptance. By now, he knows better than to lie. Beth especially can always tell, better than one of those fancy government lie detectors. So, when he tells the truth, which he will, she will give him some concoction of pain relievers through his IV. It’s going to knock him out, which means the dreams will come back. That’s not a world he wants to enter right now, as raw as he’s feeling, but it looks like he doesn’t have a choice.

“Six.” He says with shoulders slumped, tone defeated.

“We can fix that.”

She leaves the room for a moment and when she returns its to stick a syringe full of something clear into the line of his IV. The effect is immediate. His entire body slumps back against the bed, sinking into it as she pulls up his blankets and tucks him in like a child. The world dulls as every single muscle in his body relaxes and every ounce of pain he’s in disappears like magic. He’s heavy, so heavy, and yet floating on a cloud. Beth’s fingers comb through his hair until he completely loses his grip on consciousness. The first thing he hears is Steve’s voice.

The next morning, Dr. Owens takes advantage of Billy’s weakened state. It turns into a fight unlike ever that they’ve had before. It’s the kind of fight Billy doesn’t know how to win. He can’t win it by being louder or better with his fists because it’s not a screaming match or violent by any means. Billy is sobbing by the end of it. Whether it is from fear or abject relief, he can’t say. In a month when he’s completed his current round of physical therapy, when all of his stitches will have been removed to reveal the horrific scarring that covers so much of his torso, he’s going to see Steve. It was one sentence that finally made him see reason, one in the literal hundreds that Dr. Owens had at his disposal, and the one he saved for last.

“He’s fading without you near him, Billy. This isn’t making him better, or yourself.”


	8. Helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy's feelings about Steve Harrington were complex and that was before the summer from hell that nearly ended his life, before he bonded to him, before he spent months in the hospital and refused to let doctors tell Steve that he was alive. Billy has to deal with that. Steve has to deal with nightmares. The bond between them grows stronger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been forever since I've uploaded anything to this. Bit of a cliche to say I'm sorry, though I am. What can I say? The world blew up and this story is difficult to get right and I just couldn't write. I scrapped so many chapter attempts and none of them fit. I'm not even sure if this does, but finally, I think, there's a bit of happiness for you guys after all of the angst. (there is angsty shit in this chapter though, fyi, boys have issues that they have to deal with and neither of them are great at communication.)

**_Billy_ **

**_Now_ **

He knew, but the thing is, he didn’t. Not really. All of the emotions tied to Steve Harrington prior to the summer from hell were complex. He loved him. He hated him. He wanted him with a yearning that scared him and at the very same time, he wanted to bash his face in for creating that desire—he’d done it too. Something so beautiful shouldn’t exist just out of reach, taunting him like the cookie high up in a cabinet taunts a toddler. Does he regret that fight? Of course. Did it fix or solve anything? Does it ever? No. Then of course the summer from hell happened and it all made perfect sense, really. Of course there was a reason he was drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and now he was going to burn.

The thing that had changed, of course, was that he didn’t want to wreck that beautiful flame. It made sense. It all made sense in such and undeniable way that if he questioned its nature it would be as useless as questioning why the sky was blue or why the ocean had tides. But the thing he didn’t know, and couldn’t predict, understood but didn’t really get, was how absolutely complete he would feel with Steve in his arms.

It had been a point of contention with Dr. Owens, who referred to it as traumatic response. And Billy hated that he was right. Hated that he still felt weak, and hated that it was Steve Harrington who made him feel this way. But the thing that changed his mind was that Steve was feeling this too and that staying away was causing Steve pain.

He’d thought, incorrectly it turned out, that by staying away it would have less of an impact on the bond for Steve. Steve wouldn’t feel his loss so acutely. Steve was strong and Steve was brave and Steve was the best of everything, so Steve surely could get over the loss of someone who he’d hated up until the exact moment they had bonded. Steve would be fine. Better even, without Billy Hargrove and all the bad that came with him tarnishing his life. Seeing him in person, well… Billy is nothing if not stubborn, but even he could see what he’d done and just how wrong he’d been.

They’d both physically changed since his near death at the mall. Billy’s body was a map of scar tissue that spiraled out into star burst patterns that mimicked the god damned fireworks Americans were so fucking fond of using to celebrate the accursed holiday of his demise. It was irony at it’s finest. He’d been poisoned and beaten, burned, ripped apart from the inside out, made to do things he never would have done, had his control taken away and then some, and then sewn back together with a careful hand. He’d lost weight and muscle mass. He walked with a cane. And that all made sense with what had happened to him. But Steve? Was just on the edge of gaunt enough to scare Billy. He had circles under his eyes so dark that they looked like bruises. He looked like a strong enough gust of wind could bowl him over and keep him pinned. And that? That was Billy’s fault.

Seeing him rage at what Billy had done had been hard, but a penance he had to bear, so he took it. Accepted it as he would have a kiss or a fist. He’s good at that now. But feeling Steve’s lips against his own? Feeling the warm weight of his body press him into a chair? It was like breaking through the water’s surface after being held under too long. It was that first gasp of air so desperately needed. And then later being invited to his bed? Having Steve wrapped around him made everything seem worth it. If he had to nearly die to get this, it will all have been worth it. It’s that good. It’s that scary. It’s that gratifying. And he _loves_ it.

And Billy can’t sleep, not because he’d not tired or because he’s afraid—for once he’s not. But because he can’t relinquish his grip on the here and now. Doesn’t want to miss a moment of this feeling. Of feeling Steve soft with sleep, pressed against him. Of feeling Steve’s breath caressing his neck. Of seeing his eyelashes splayed out across cheekbones in the shadowed darkness of his bedroom. If last summer never happened he might have never gotten this and he’s spent the last six weeks wondering why him, pitying himself and wondering how much more he was ever expected to take. And now there’s this. And he just wants to bask in it. Letting sleep take hold would be like giving in, would be turning away from this, and he can’t. Not just yet.

It’s been a few hours now, just lying in the darkness with Steve asleep. Billy counts his breaths and cannot keep his fingers from tracing lines over his chest, his neck, and the planes of his face. Any expanse of skin he can reach. He’s held there by something like awe for this man, this man who taunted his decisions, who stood up in the face of his violence, who protected and saved kids and a town that is more cursed than any of the horror books Billy has ever read in his life. This hero that is, by some fickle twist of fate, his to hold. And Billy is helpless. And for once he doesn’t care.

Another hour goes by and something changes. Steve’s breath, which has been that consistent rhythmic slow intake and exhale of those asleep, suddenly hitches, catching in his chest and then stuttering out in a sharp and broken gust. He twitches. Slow movements at first until he’s clawing at the blanket that is tucked up around him. Eyes rolling under the thin skin of his eyelids, shifting back and forth rapidly. And at first Billy leans back and lets it all happen, because he’s clearly dreaming and sometimes dreams are good. Billy is too caught up in the love that he’s feeling to think otherwise. But then Steve whimpers. There’s no denying the sound, and even if he did, Steve follows it up with another, head thrashing side to side and lip trembling all the while.

“No…no, lemme go.” Steve slurs in his sleep, chest heaving with his gasps.

Billy knows that he should wake him. It’s clear that this isn’t a pleasant dream, but then he thinks back to all of those violent awakenings in the hospitals when his nightmares got really out of hand, times when the dreams followed him into waking, when he lashed out at the nurses and orderlies who dared touch him when he was caught in the throes of that. He doesn’t really care if Steve lashes out on him. But he remembers how jarring it was to wake up swinging, the guilt that would swim inside of him for days after. He doesn’t want to make this worse.

“Billy. No. Please. No.” Steve murmurs.

A hollow feeling opens up in the pit of his stomach, cold sweat breaking out across the back of his neck. And for a fleeting moment, he wonders—worries—that due to the connection between them, Steve is now caught in the grips of the worst nightmares that plague Billy. It wasn’t until Steve made the next whimper that he realizes it’s not that at all.

“No, stay with me. God damn it stay.” It comes out as a broken sob as Steve thrashes again. Tear tracks catching in the light of the moon from the parted curtains.

Billy blinks and sucks in a breath, a broken memory filling his mind, of pain and surrendering to it while that broken phrase curled around him, coaxing him to stay and not give in. The memory of that night is foggy at best and Steve needs him now, so he pushes it aside and lets out a croaked, “Steve,” as he shakes him gently.

Steve comes to all at once, gasping and hauling himself up into a sitting position, shoving backwards until his back meets the headboard, blankets pooling around his middle. Billy recognizes that panicked stance for what it is, the instinct to put your back against something. He hates that even now, Steve feels it. Brown eyes blown wide and wild, chest heaving as he takes in the dim surroundings. Billy sits still, barely dares to breathe with Steve looking like that, a cornered wild animal. It isn’t until those crazed wide eyes lock onto his that Steve actually breaks down.

“Oh, shit.” Billy murmurs, more to himself than anything. Because he’s never seen Steve cry before, much less like this. Face screwed up against the heaving choked sobs that wrack his thin frame, tears and snot running unchecked because Steve is just curling in on himself with both hands fisted in his hair. It’s painful to watch and Billy feels helpless against the onslaught of it all, he doesn’t know what to do, how to combat this. Fear coils within him only to intertwine with guilt and a whole slew of things he doesn’t understand, but the one thing he does is that he’s got to get this to stop.

“Babe.” He doesn’t even mean to say it, nearly kicks himself for the word as it tumbles out of his exhausted mouth. “Baby, it’s okay.” He tries again, crooning it gently, because at this point he might as well go with it. Steve seems the type to be into cute pet names, or maybe Billy just desperately hopes he is. _Pretty Boy, Bambi, Princess,_ he’s used them all on him well before they bonded, and now they hold a deeper meaning _._ He doesn’t even know if it’s the right way to handle this but it’s all he’s got. So he says it again, slides across the space between them and places his hands at Steve’s wrists, thumbs stroking up into his palm to tempt him into letting go of his beautiful hair.

“Baby, come on, I’m right here.” He doesn’t croon it this time, drops his voice instead. Tries to give Steve something of the familiar to pull back on.

“You d-died and left m-me.” Steve hiccups. And Billy can see how much it costs him to say that, the embarrassment and vulnerability clawing up at Steve’s throat, shining out his damp eyes, making his cheeks, neck, and chest a splotchy red. But the words are true and Billy has to atone for that. He thought he was doing the right thing, when clearly it was anything but. God everything crumbles to dust at his finger tips and now he’s tarnishing Steve too.

“Feel.” Is all Billy says, choking on his own tears that he won’t let spill. He yanks Steve’s hand forward, pressing it against his chest, over his heart. “I’m here and I’m not leaving you ever again.” He says, like it’s a promise that he could keep. Like death, something he’s known so intimately that it almost took him away once before, won’t be back to part them again.

Steve sniffles, seems placated by the heart beating a steady rhythm under his palm more so than the words Billy can’t help but spill. And inch by inch, he slowly creeps into Billy’s space. He takes stuttered breaths, sounding more like a child than the barely-adult-male that he is. But once he’s close enough he sort of slumps and goes boneless against Billy, tucking his wet face into Billy’s neck, shivering when Billy wraps his arms around him and holds him close. His palm doesn’t leave Billy’s chest as his own rabbiting heart slows to match the speed of the one that thumps under it.

Steve huffs out a soft breath, hot against Billy’s neck, causing him to shiver. And then slowly Steve lifts his head, lips finding a home on Billy’s parted ones. It starts of soft, intimate, a healing of things so broken between them finally being pieced back together slowly. Steve had been dunked into one of his worst nightmares and Billy had pulled him out of it, witnessed just a fraction of the heavy emotions that Steve had been dealing with in his absence. But with each brush of their lips, it grows deeper, and fast. Steve’s fingers curl into the soft material of the shirt under his palms, at the same time that Billy’s grip on Steve’s body becomes that much tighter. Their shared breath mingles and comes faster.

Steve is the first one to breach the barrier of lips alone, swiping his tongue inside and sighing into it. He needs this, needs him, and makes that a known fact by crawling that much closer, sliding his leg up and over to straddle Billy where he sits on his bed.

Steve’s fingers curl and claw with need, and it’s dark so Billy lets him yank the sleep shirt off of him, lets his chest be exposed to the night air. He hasn’t willingly allowed anyone to look at his chest since the accident with the exception of doctors and nurses. He still avoids looking at his own reflection while bathing. He hisses when Steve’s hands make contact again after wrestling with the shirt, jerking slightly at the intrusion. But it’s not unwanted, just so different from how he’s been touched in so very long. Steve doesn’t pull back, or hesitate, as he keeps mapping out the planes of Billy’s body with a gentle touch. His fingers dance over a web of scars spanning between Billy’s hips and ribs, tracing the patterns and feeling the skin in between. Billy trembles, filled with an ache he can’t name. The sound that comes out of his throat, unbidden, is embarrassingly riddled with need. He nearly chokes on it, as if he could take it back, not show his hand to Steve so sufficiently. But then the next time Steve kisses him, he can tell Steve is smiling, all smug and beautiful. The King Steve Billy never got to know but is pleasantly surprised still exists within him. Steve smiles against his lips, slides one hand up his back between his shoulder blades to hold him closer, shifts at the same time so that their hips are locked together with no space in between. There is no missing the hardness that is pressed against his belly, just as he’s sure Steve can feel his own pressed against his groin.

Steve pulls away, only to lick up his neck, to latch on there and suck. Billy moans. Clenches at Steve’s hips and holds him there, arches up to try and find a bit of friction. Steve laces his fingers into the curls at the base of Billy’s neck and pulls, lifting his head to lock eyes with him. Even in the dim light, Billy can see how dazed Steve’s brown eyes are, dark with desire, his lips slightly swollen from the kissing, hair a beautiful disaster. It’s funny to think he did this to him, the very idea of it so novel after nearly a year of pining away. The thing is, he’s certain that he looks just as wrecked, cause he is.

“I want…” Steve pants against his lips, “I want you. Please Fuck me.”

It should be everything, the green light to take it to the finish line, to do what he’s wanted with Steve Harrington since he first arrived in Hawkins, and yet his mouth is suddenly dry and his heart is hammering in his chest for an entirely different reason. It’s like being doused in ice water, this realization. Pretty Boy is in his lap, looking like a wet dream, and Billy doesn’t even know if he _can._

Steve must read him all too well, or well enough that he knows something is up. He pulls back. “What’s wrong, where did you go?”

“Steve I…I can’t.” The omission in itself has his cheeks on fire in the dark. He’s glowing with embarrassment, radiating heat. And Steve is backing away further. Billy tears his eyes away, looking off to the side at the hideous plaid wallpaper that covers Steve’s bedroom. Silence swells between them, uncomfortable and awkward. Billy wishes Steve would get off of his lap. Wishes he could die. Wishes the bed would swallow him like some cheesy horror flick.

“I um, don’t know what I’m d-doing. And I don’t want to hurt you. And if you can’t, you can’t and we can…well, whatever, we can work it out, I don’t mind. I-I don’t _need_ —” Steve’s stuttering and Billy can’t help but scoff. Scoff and absolutely hate his body and its long list of failures. If this could have happened before it wouldn’t have been a problem, back when his body was _his._

“ _Hey!”_ Steve snaps, sounding annoyed now. “I _don’t_ need it. Look I’m not stupid, okay? Like I know things are different now. And _none_ of that is your fault, Billy. I don’t _blame_ you. But I don’t know what this looks like, what to do. I know what to do when it’s a girl.” He pauses for a while, hands nervously tapping on his thigh while he thinks. “I thought, um, ugh I’m just going to come out and say it, okay? I was thinking that I could…ride you. That with everything, that wouldn’t be too hard on your injuries.”

“Oh.” Billy says in the stillness of the night, eyes snapping back to look at Steve.

“Yeah, ‘oh’, dickhead.” Steve crosses his arms and looks a bit petulant, a bit like he used to in high school. It shouldn’t be hot, cause he knows he’s annoyed with him, but well, Billy’s kinda always been fucked for him, so…

Billy pulls Steve’s arms apart, can’t help the smirk that’s taken root on his lips. Kisses him sweetly at first and then with a little more fire. Nips at his lip to tease. Then he pulls back. “Do you have lube?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Steve murmurs, eyebrows drawn together and lips turning down into a concentrated frown.

He slips off of Billy’s lap and fiddles with the drawer of his nightstand, looking for the stuff.

“Take off your clothes.” Billy says, voice thick with heat. It comes out exactly as he intends it to, which is something, considering the clusterfuck this night has been. He watches as Steve startles to look at him like a deer in the headlights, reminding him of all the times he’s called him Bambi. Billy hears his throat make a sound as he swallows, more than he sees the actual act because it’s dark.

It’s too awkward to be sexy, the fumbling of limbs as Steve undresses hurriedly, near tripping over cast off clothing in the dark, and yet it does something for Billy. Because this _means_ something. Because Steve is in too much of a rush to be sexy and methodical, to put on a show for him. Billy wiggles out of his clothing too, cool air greeting freshly bared skin with the kiss of chill before the warmth of Steve engulfs him again.

It takes everything for Billy to keep his head in the game, to remind himself that Steve’s never done this before. Or well, not like this, with another man. To remember that he needs to be gentle and slow. Because the moment Steve’s pale and lithe body is back on his again, Steve’s teeth are at his neck, and just feeling all of the skin to skin contact is driving him a bit wild. Hell, even the smell of Steve would be enough, he thinks. It doesn’t help that Steve is once again shifting on top of him, hips undulating, and clearly into it. It’s been too long since he’s done anything with anyone, even his own hand.

He taps on Steve’s hip and tells him to shift up on his knees a bit. He groans low in his throat as Steve reaches for his cock, pleasure skimming up his spine at the feel of his hand around him. Steve watches, panting, as Billy slicks up two fingers and cocks his head to the side.

“But I thought…” Steve’s voice is small in the dark, confused.

“You need to be stretched, Bambi.” Billy says, explanation sounding husky with need he can’t hold back.

There’s so much he could say, ways to explain. Especially when Steve’s eyes go wide when Billy’s hand slips between his legs, the little sound he makes when his fingers meet their mark, not pressing in, but just _there._ But instead he kisses him soundly, wraps his freehand around Steve’s length, distracting him in a way from what anxieties might be flitting through that beautiful head of his. He’s slow and methodical about how he takes apart the boy on his lap, listening to the way Steve’s breath changes. He slows down when Steve jolts from the intrusion, murmuring to him, stroking him through it. The next time Steve jerks in his grip it’s not a bad thing. The quiet grunts and moans that have been spilling from his lips suddenly go higher in pitch and his entire body tenses, Billy keeps his fingers curved and presses there again.

“Billy, please.” Steve begs against his lips. “Let me, please, I need…”

“Go slow.” Is all Billy says as he lets Steve take over. He can’t speak as Steve sinks down on his length, can’t even make a garbled moan because he’s too busy sucking in breath as he is enveloped in tight heat. His world narrows to the points in which they are connected. Steve stalls out after taking Billy to the hilt, panting, locking eyes with him. Probably getting used to the sensation, to the new feeling. He remembers how weird it felt the first time someone actually gave a shit about what they were doing to him. Weird but good. He shifts a few times, even little movements like that are enough to make Billy’s toes curl. And then he moves.

Between the honeyed moans dripping from Steve’s lips that he eats up like candy, Billy feels something unfurling in his chest. Something sharp and demanding. Something that makes him think of death and destruction but only because the first time he felt this feeling, that was what followed. The invisible cord that connects them, the places where their souls meet, pulls taunt. The line thrumming with pleasure and love so deep and vast that Billy is near tears from the feeling reverberating down his bones. The mark on his hip tingles, an echo of that moment. Steve tosses his head back, removes a hand from Billy’s shoulders where he’d kept them to balance himself, and Billy watches as he draws long fingers down his chest, down his stomach where his muscles are undulating under his glistening skin, to brush against his own bond mark so that Billy knows he feels it too.

It’s a lot, it’s so much, this love that he didn’t feel he could deserve, much less have. The pleasure washing over him with every movement. This feeling of connectedness and oneness to the only person that matters. Billy doesn’t know where he ends and Steve begins. Steve is gasping now, movements faster, chasing an end. And then he falters, hips falling out of rhythm and breath stalling as his back curves and his fingers claw in deep. Warmth splatters against Billy’s belly and he loses it entirely, giving up the fight, letting pleasure wash over him in waves as he follows Steve into oblivion.

When the fog in his brain clears, Steve’s lips are on his. He’s still inside Steve. That rush of connection and devotion that tied them up in knots is still wrapped around them in a vice-like grip and it’s _everything._ Billy can’t breathe, can’t think. All he can do is submit to what this is. Helpless and lost adrift in a sea of Steve Harrington.

Words are on the tip of his tongue, tangled up in his teeth, and yet he can’t say them. It’s obvious though, painfully obvious, he hopes. That the meaning is implied. That the meaning of them is brandished on both of their hips. That even if Steve didn’t know before, Billy hopes that he at least gets the idea of it now. He should say it though, out loud. But maybe…maybe not tonight.


	9. Bella Notte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy and Steve have their first date.

_Steve_

He pulls the Beamer up to the gravel driveway that snakes between a thick forest of trees on either side. In the passenger seat next to him lies the nicest bottle of red that he thought he could get away with buying without pissing off Billy, next to that is a bottle of Jack. The red is for dinner, but he doubts it will get drank at all. His knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel too tight. So tight that they protest when he lets up a bit, a warm wash of a gentle ache follows. He barely notices. Too nervous to care.

And that’s the thing really. He’s so fucking nervous, can’t remember a time when a date of all things made him tremble this much. Maybe in the very beginning, with Tina, before he really knew what he was doing with girls. Maybe with Brittany the night he lost his virginity. Either way its been years since something as simple as a date has done more than give him small flutters of anticipation—if anything—in his gut.

Although its not so simple is it? He thinks. He spent months dreaming about moments like this. Months yearning for the simplicity of this. He doesn’t want to fuck it up now, not when he’s been dying for it. Can he fuck it up? Maybe. Billy lived without him for at least a month after he regained consciousness. He could have gone longer. Especially if he knew for a fact what an idiot he bonded to. If he thought that his soul had made the wrong decision.

He just… He wants to learn who Billy is, if Billy will let him. It’s very nearly a need that he feels down to the marrow of his bones, this desire to dive headlong into Billy, wrap himself up in him and never resurface. He doesn’t know if that desire is part of the bond, or part of the trauma that’s been put on it. It’s sappy shit like that tough, that he’s afraid of voicing to Billy. Or like the dreams he’s had, the things his mind pieced together for him that Billy might like.

The driveway is long, but not long enough to thoroughly work himself up into panic attack territory. Small blessings there. The trees thin and he can see the trailer there at the edge of the lake. It’s plain looking, a weird yellow beige color that a lot of trailers in the area are. The only difference is this one isn’t in the park off of Flemming Road, but alone by itself sitting somewhat picturesque on the lake. There’s a porch that tucks up along its front. It’s weird to think at one time Chief Hopper lived here. It’s even weirder to think that Billy lives here now all on his own, but from the stories Max has told him, Steve can’t help but be grateful about that.

Steve has seen Neil Hargrove twice. Once at the funeral, and one time about three weeks after it. Consumed by grief and swimming in fresh details of the hell Billy’s life had been before the Upside Down had come in and ripped it apart, Steve might not have put his best foot forward during that small interaction outside of Melvald’s. And to be fair, it was small. It was still technically assault though. One well placed punch was all it took to lay that bastard out on the sidewalk and Steve walked over him and down the sidewalk like an action hero. Dustin assures him he looked totally badass, but he felt nothing. That had been the strangest thing about it all. Steve saw Neil and his stupid mustache and his stupid high and tight haircut, and all he remembers is a haze of red, the flash of impact, and then a wash of numbness. He wonders if Billy knows about that. If Max told him.

Billy is out on the porch, leaning against the wooden railing and smoking a cigarette while he watches him. Steve kills the engine and has to take a moment to just breathe. Maybe one day reality will eat through the trauma he’s endured and the simple act of seeing Billy standing there, cane or not, isn’t going to smack him in the chest and make him feel like he’s stepped into a dream realm. Maybe one day he will be used to it. But it’s still novel now. It’s still strange and weird and he has to repeatedly tell himself that this isn’t a dream. He looks just how he expected he would, blue jeans tight, white thermal, red plaid buttoned down unbuttoned, jean jacket thrown over that. Yes, less skin than normal, but still something that reads _Billy_. He shakes himself and climbs out, still staring as he brings the bag of booze with him up to the steps.

“Take a picture, Pretty Boy, it’ll last longer.” Billy taunts with a grin.

“Shut the fuck up.” Steve says exasperatedly. He can’t help the bashful smile that is there on his lips. That Billy put there.

The thing is, Billy is staring just as much, blue eyes raking over Steve’s form, looking for the hair out of place, the smile that doesn’t sit just quite right. Which means he’s zeroed right in on the light dusting of pink high up on Steve’s cheekbones. He doesn’t say anything about it though, doesn’t taunt him further, just leans into his space and hovers there. He could kiss him, Steve wants him to, but he doesn’t. Though he does stare at his lips like he might, like he’s at least thinking about it. Which is enough to get Steve’s heart racing in his chest. To cover it up, Steve swipes the cigarette out from in between Billy’s fingers with his free hand, takes a drag off of it to give himself something to do so he doesn’t say something stupid. Something like ‘I’ve been waiting to see you all day’, or ‘for fucks sake Billy just kiss me already’. He just got here, and he wants to at least pretend that he knows how to play it cool. At one time he did, right?

Billy’s eyes flick down to the bag in Steve’s hands. “I told you that I was cooking, do you really not trust my capabilities?”

“It’s pasta. Even my mom can cook pasta.” Steve assures him. “I brought wine—”

“Of course you did.” Billy seems to relax at that, even as he gives a flippant, “fucking rich boy,” as he turns around.

“And whiskey.” Steve adds.

Billy turns back to him and raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well, I mean, you said it yourself.” Steve raises a shoulder before straightening his spine and smoothing out his features to give that perfect country club pompous dick look that he knows he does so well, nose upturned and everything. It’s like stepping into a different skin, familiar even if he doesn’t like it because it is so not him anymore, if it ever even was to begin with. “Fucking rich boy that I am, I was raised to bring gifts to the host when I am invited for dinners and the like.”

Billy laughs, warm and genuine, bringing a twinkle to his already beautiful eyes. It makes him seem younger when he’s like this, and Steve wants to make it happen again. “Is that so, Stevie?”

“Obviously.” Steve drawls, holding true to the King Steve air and looking down his nose, but then he drops the act and smirks at Billy, brown eyes bright in the light of the setting sun. There’s something building there in the space between them, an energy that is sparking, blooming. Steve feels it in his stomach and chest. Billy takes a step closer to him, before placing a hand on Steve’s hip. He licks his lip and Steve’s eyes follow the motion, holding back from mimicking it, but only just. His mouth still parts at the act, he still sucks in a breath in the heated space. And then his previous unvoiced request is met as Billy brushes his lips over Steve’s softly. 

It’s a small thing, really. An innocent closed mouthed kiss. Over before it barely even had a chance to start. But Steve wants more, needs more, and so he lowers the bag to the deck and grabs Billy’s jacket before he has a chance to pull away, steps further into his space, and kisses him properly. Steve’s tongue edges alone the seam of Billy’s lips, which part with a sigh. Steve’s hands ease against the denim, smoothing and wandering, reveling in the feel of life under his palms. One drifts up to cup the back of Billy’s head but the other shifts until it’s just over his heart, feeling the steady beat of it. Proof that Billy is real and alive and whole and _his._ Because his whole body is screaming it, has been screaming it. His reality bends and shrinks down until nothing else exists but the boy under his palms and at his lips.

Just when he’s about to fully lose himself, Billy pulls back slightly. “We keep this up much longer and the food is gunna burn.” He mumbles against Steve’s lips.

It takes longer than it should to piece together what Billy is talking about. That Billy is actually cooking for him like he said he would.

“Oh, right.” Steve says, huffing slightly as he tries to right himself back to the present.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” Billy says, pressing a chaste kiss and then tucking a strand of hair behind Steve’s ears. “I mean, we do have all night, unless you have to get back or something.”

And that’s laughable. Where else would Steve rather be? “Nah, I’m all yours.”

“Well, come on in, then.” Billy offers, opening the door and swinging it wide.

Steve wasn’t sure what he expected as he steps over the threshold of Billy’s place. He’d never stepped foot into the house on Cherry Lane that had housed Billy until July forth. Their relationship wasn’t at a place for that to be a thing before the events of the summer, and of course after, he’d steered clear because of Neil and because he was barely surviving as it was. The idea of walking into Billy’s old bedroom back when he’d thought he was dead is one that doesn’t bear much thinking on—it would have killed him. The house feels lived in, in the same way Joyce’s old house felt. 

There’s a couch pressed up against the wall under the front windows. Brown and tan with orange flowers. The wear on the velvet makes it obvious that it’s second-hand. But it looks comfortable and fits the space. Steve’s surprised to find a television with rabbit ear antenna across from it. There’s even a coffee table, It’s black and gold and doesn’t match the couch at all, and Steve can see where Billy’s boots have scuffed the paint on the top of it. Scorpions posters make up the extent of Billy’s wall art. All things that seem normal and not surprising until he takes in what makes up the side wall heading to the bedroom. There’s not one, not two, but three bookcases filled to the brim with paperbacks. Steve’s fingers itch to touch the spines of them, to peruse the shelves and see what Billy reads. He didn’t even know that Billy enjoyed reading, but it’s clear from this that he does. No one keeps three bookcases full of books if they are just to look at. Even his mother doesn’t do that and everything she does is for appearance sake. Her Harlequin romance novels are in brown paper bags that hide in her closet. Steve’s only seen her reading them if she’s had enough wine and his dad isn’t home.

“Bathroom is through there to the right.” Billy gestures to the open door.

“Noted.” Steve nods.

He follows Billy to the small kitchen and puts his bag near the sink. It seems like the most out of the way place for it. There isn’t a lot of counterspace to work with, and so he wants to leave the most usable parts for Billy, since Billy wanted to cook for him. The other side of the kitchen is taken up by the entire operation. A cutting board is set to the side, half an onion still on it in a pool of pinkish red juice, tomato tops off to the side.

Steve blinks, noticing that there isn’t a jar of pasta sauce in sight, but instead a large cookbook propped against the breadbox. It smells amazing, even if Steve can’t see anything cooking on the stove aside from the largest pot Billy owns filled with water.

He runs his hand over the recipe page, picture dated. “What’s this?”

Billy swallows and runs his teeth over his lip, looking anywhere in the kitchen but Steve.

“You mentioned your grandmother cooked Italian for you before…” He trails off and then grunts and opens the oven, wafting out heat along with the most unctuous smell that makes Steve’s mouth water.

Steve’s mouth opens as he looks at the recipe book anew, large blocky letters rearranging themselves in his vision until he can finally take it in. _Linguine Pomodoro._ And it’s stupid, or maybe it’s not, Steve isn’t really the best to ask in these sorts of situations anymore, but his chest swells at the thought that Billy _listened_ to a dumb story he’d been babbling about on the phone to him two days ago, finger curled into the cord as he explained to Billy how much he missed his Nana, expecting Billy to rib him for the petname for her but he hadn’t. He’d listened, and he’d gotten a _recipe book_ and he was making pomodoro sauce from _scratch_ , all because Steve said that his Nana used to cook either Italian food for him, or southern food depending on her mood and if Pop was eating with them. He takes a sharp intake of breath.

“If you don’t like it, I can order pizza. I swear I don’t know what I’m doing.” Billy says, arms crossed.

“No! That’s not…” He shakes his head and just looks at Billy for a second, “I was just surprised, is all. _Pleasantly_ so. You said pasta and I stupidly assumed you meant like Ragu fresh out of the jar and warmed up on the stove. This is…” He clears his throat. “It smells really good, Billy. Familiar.”

When Billy smiles at that, there’s pride in it. Steve can tell by the way his spine straightens and he smiles a bit like he used to on the court, not mocking and menacing, but like when he got a basket. “Good, now get out of here. Take a load off or something, this kitchen ain’t big enough for the both of us and I gotta take out the tray from the oven or the tomatoes are going to burn.”

So Steve does. He perches on the couch but instead of finding something on the television, he’s focused on what’s going on in the kitchen instead. Billy said he didn’t know what he’s doing, but that’s a lie. He doesn’t dither or scrunch his nose up at the recipe book, in fact he hardly glances at it while he works away on preparing dinner. Steve knows what uncertainty looks like, and this isn’t it. Billy looks more comfortable here than he’s seen him anywhere recently. It’s a nice look. One that would have had his heart tripping over itself anyway, regardless of the fact that Billy is making him a special dinner based off an offhanded comment Steve had made. It means something, Steve is sure of it, or wants to be anyway. The fact that Billy was paying attention to him like that. It’s not something he’s used to.

Before too much longer, Billy is pressing a plate into his hands and sitting down next to him on the couch. “I probably should have said earlier, but I don’t have a wine bottle opener.”

“I figured, there’s one in the bag. I’ll go get it.” Steve puts his plate down and goes to open the wine. The sink is already full of dishes and he doesn’t really think that Billy is the type to need fancy glasses, so he just brings the bottle out and sets it in between them.

Steve tucks in with relish. The pasta is al dente, the sauce both sweet and savory. Perfect, really. And all the roasting Billy did with the ingredients gave the sauce depth of flavor that even his Nana’s sauce didn’t have. He tells Billy as much.

“Glad to hear it, Pretty Boy.” Billy says, but there’s something in his tone that’s off. It shakes slightly. And that’s when Steve notices that Billy has barely touched his own pasta. His fingers are fumbling with the fork in a way that looks absentminded but is in fact clumsy, not twirling it to take bites but mainly stirring it around in a tangle on the plate.

“Are you not hungry?” Steve asks. Billy puts the plate down with a clatter.

“Nah. Ate a big lunch.” He says and Steve doesn’t know why, but he’s certain that’s a lie. Billy’s hand shakes.

Steve takes a deep inhale of breath, and then decides to press on anyway, damn the consequences. “Are you hurting?”

Billy’s mouth works. Steve watches his throat bob and the way he resolutely stares at some spot on the wall instead of looking him in the eye. “Always hurting.”

“You pushed yourself too hard making dinner, didn’t you?” He presses softly.

“Fuck that, no I can cook.” Billy says with an angry edge. 

“Then why aren’t you eating it?”

“Are you trying to say I can’t take care of myself, Harrington?” Billy all but growls. “I can eat. I just don’t fucking want to.”

And _that_ is the Billy he remembers, the Billy he _knows._ Except now, Steve feels stupid for never having seen what it was before. That this is bullshit, a front of snarling rage to make Steve back down so that he doesn’t see something that Billy doesn’t want him to. But Steve’s not afraid anymore, nor is he apathetic and ambivalent to Billy’s presence and plight. He twirls pasta around his own fork and brings it up.

“What are you doing?” Billy asks just as heated as before, and sure, Billy could smack the fork out of his hand, but it’s his own carpet he would be staining.

“Fucking feeding you, what’s it look like?” He snaps back. And this _isn’t_ how he wanted the night to go, but it is, apparently. “Come on.” He says, gentler, softer. Not as soft as he wants his voice to be, because he doesn’t want Billy to mistake it for pity. “You cooked for me, let me feed you. It’s only fair.”

Billy opens his mouth, staring at the food on the fork and not at Steve. The next bite is easier, defenses lowering. By the third he finally flicks his eyes up at Steve. He doesn’t say thank you, but it’s in the air anyway.

“Does that happen a lot?”

Billy twitches and then shakes his head no. “Only on days when I really push myself.”

“So only on days that end in y?” He asks, but it’s not mean.

Billy fights against a smile. “You sound like Beth.”

“That nurse you liked so much?”

Billy nods and accepts another bite. “She was nice to me. Didn’t take any of my shit.”

“I can’t imagine you were the easiest of patients to deal with.”

“Fuck you, I am a delight.” Billy smirks. “Nah, I was pretty terrible, feeble doesn’t suit me.”

Steve shakes his head. “It doesn’t, but you’re not, you know?”

“Steve, if you try to tell me that I was a hero, I will dump this bottle of wine all over your nicely pressed dockers.” Billy warns.

Steve pulls his hands up in supplication, feeds Billy another bite and then takes one of his own. They talk for a while, Billy complains about the car that Dr. Owens got for him. It’s a blue Ford Escort. He _hates_ the thing. But he couldn’t really complain about that to Dr. Owens. The guy pretty much set him up with a place to live and money to live off of, a car. A fund to go to college whenever he feels ready to do so. Billy’s not sure if he will ever take him up on it though. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life now that he has it. He frowns when he admits that, but Steve knows how he feels. Steve tells him without concentrating on the bad parts, of which were many, how things have been after Starcourt. How Robin is working at Family Video when she’s not in school. How Steve didn’t know what he was doing before Starcourt and then after, well… He gets up and begins to do the dishes, cleaning the kitchen as he goes while Billy watches him.

“We have time to figure it out, Pretty Boy.” Billy says, and Steve believes him. It’s a thought that sits warm in his gut, the idea that they can do that together. Figure out the direction that their lives are going to go.

When he sits back down he pulls Billy’s hands into his own, starts massaging them and knows it’s the right move by the way that Billy groans and tips his head back. The evening drifts into night as Steve works up Billy’s arms. He gets Billy out of the jean jacket, and massages over the layers of fabric. His shoulders are knotted up and tense, but with some coaxing the muscles relax under Steve’s patient ministrations.

“Thank you.” Billy says on a sigh, blue eyes flicking over Steve’s face and landing on his lips. Steve can see the exhaustion in Billy’s face and wonders if they should call it a night. He’s about to do just that when Billy whispers, “Stay.”

Steve’s mouth descends in a kiss as an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ah, it's been a while. Covid is a bitch it's true, but the thing is that I am more busy than I was precovid. In fact I shouldn't have even had time to pull this chapter together, but election anxiety has got me like woah and my series wasn't enough of an escape for me, so these boys were more than happy to provide that. I can't promise when the next chapter will be out, because I just don't know. But, I will tell you, that I'm not giving up on this little story of mine. Also, I didn't edit it or anything so like, typos? Sorry.


	10. Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve stays after their date, unable and unwilling to leave Billy's side. Billy makes a confession, Steve makes a confession of his own.

_Steve_

Steve gets Billy up off the couch with minimal complaint, but lets him walk himself to his room. He feels like there’s a fine line he needs to walk now. He wants more than anything to _help._ To make things easier, to take the brunt of Billy’s weight, because he _can._ The kids used to accuse him of mothering them. It used to grate on his nerves, that freshly raw and newly wounded from his fall from grace King Steve skin. It used to make him lie awake at night wondering just what the fuck happened to him when it became obvious that he was number one on their call list when it came to asking for rides or a place to play DnD or any number of things. He used to be Mr. Popular. Junior Prom King. Life of the party. And then in the blink of an eye he was carting around five sometimes six kids while coordinating with their mothers like he was at the top the PTA call tree. He was still getting used to his new reality well after Billy blew into town. He was the babysitter, the one who knew that Lucas was lactose intolerant and that Mike had migraines and that sometimes when Will got more quiet than normal, he had to ask him to pick out five things he could see, four things he could hear, three things he could touch, two that he could smell, and one that he could taste. Yes, Mike knew that too, they all did, but he was the adult in the room.

It was an aspect of himself that he lost a bit after July 4th. With his decent into a pool of grief he didn’t know could ever end, the kids had to grow up. He didn’t have the energy to be the mother hen. It appears like it’s returned to him though.

Thing is, he is more than aware that Billy will _not_ appreciate mothering. But maybe there’s a compromise there. A minefield in which he can traverse that allows him to help without smothering. Maybe. He hopes so anyway.

So, he holds himself steady instead of offering to help Billy to the bedroom. But he does turn off some of the lights and make sure that the door is locked before he follows him in there, has to swallow back a noise when he walks into the room to see Billy unzipping his pants. He pushes down the lust that threatens to rise at the sight as he makes his way into the room. He wants, oh how he wants, but he isn’t sure that Billy would be up for that, no matter what he’d said prior. He’d pushed himself too hard, and Steve…well, he could work with that. _Wanted_ to work with that.

Billy’s hands still the moment he steps into the room, so Steve crosses over to him, and gently removes his hands from the fly of his pants so that he could do it himself. His eyes never leave Billy’s, practiced fingers deftly going through the motions. Billy’s throat bobs with a thick swallow. Steve’s mind makes quick work of his expression, sees mirrored levels of desire swelling in that ocean gaze, but also the fear that feathers along his jaw. It’s light in the room, not bright from the overhead light, but lit from the lamp on the nightstand, bright enough that if he peels off Billy’s layers he will be able to see everything. The once golden skin made pale from the months spent in a hospital room. The lack of definition lost by inactivity while his body desperately clung to life. The kaleidoscope of scars that his fingers had danced along merely a few days ago in the darkness of his own room. Not an inch of it disgusts Steve. Quite the opposite. He _wants_ to see it, feast his eyes on all of that flesh, wants to drag his tongue along it, find out if the scars taste different. But that fear gives him pause, enough of a hold on reality and the weighty heavy thing that Billy is trusting him with. He has to be careful here.

Instead of rucking up Billy’s thermal, he pulls his hands back and unbuttons his own shirt, easing out of it without looking away from the man in front of him and letting it fall to the floor. Billy’s mouth parts as he sucks in a breath. If his desire wasn’t so evident, Steve might feel uncomfortable caught in that unrelenting gaze. And that’s when he notices it. The familiarity of it. He’s seen Billy look at him like that in fleeting moments, moments that he’d discounted, sure that he was mistaken. In the halls of the high school just outside of the library. In the locker room after basketball practice. Once at the pool when the kids needed to be picked up. At the time reading more into the gaze would have been dangerous, but now… Now Billy isn’t stopping. Isn’t flicking his aviators up to hide it or turning away.

“Billy.” Steve says in a whisper. “How long?” Because there is a thread here, woven into their bond that is teasing at him, dancing in front of his face, and he has to know.

Billy’s seafoam gaze shutters momentarily, closing off from Steve as he looks away. He plays with his sleeve. “Can’t we just pretend it was Starcourt?” He asks just as quietly.

“Why would I want to pretend that? Why can’t I know?” There’s hurt there, Steve realizes, and he thinks its on both sides. But he doesn’t know why or what he did, or even how to bridge that gap.

“Because then it would be the same for both of us. Easier that way, don’t you think?”

“Did I do something?” Steve asks, he can’t help it.

“You didn’t do anything, Pretty Boy.” Billy is quick to reassure him, but they are still standing there, half clothed and Billy won’t look at him. Silence drags on through painful seconds. “Look, I…when I tell you, it won’t make sense. Starcourt makes sense.”

Steve’s lips are in a thin tight line, a habit he learned at his mother’s hip, that knee jerk reaction to hide his emotion behind a wall. It’s muscle memory at this point, but he realizes he’s doing it, so he rolls them, trying to relax the muscles there. “So tell me.”

“The day before Tina’s party? First day I was at school. I saw you there across the parking lot, sitting in your car with Wheeler. I was so fucking angry, I didn’t want to be here in this shit town, didn’t want to be going to a new school for my senior year. I didn’t _want_ to put on this show that I knew I had to for my old man, you know? Had to play straight, be king, run this school with an iron fist so that no one would question me. And there you were.” Billy shook his head and sighed. “Prettiest god damned thing I’d ever seen and nothing that I could have, even if you were…even if you’d been…”

Steve blinks a little at that, tries to remember the day that Billy is talking about, tries to fit it in with his own reality. But it doesn’t make sense. “Wait. You mean…”

“Yeah,” Billy reluctantly admits. “From the first time I saw you.”

“But you _hated_ me.” Steve tries.

“I didn’t.” He sighs again, long and drawn out. Runs his hands over his face and then lowers himself to the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Steve, I’m gay.”

Steve feels a little like he’s been hit over the head with something. All of the sudden reading Billy is like reading…well, any book. Things aren’t making sense, because he _knows_ Billy has dated girls, loads of them. Had a new girl on his arm nearly every week. But then again, their first night together he’d known what he was doing, while Steve had just known with an intensity of what he wanted— _needed_ , Billy had known _how._

“I’m gay,” he says again, “and in my house that was the worst thing I could be. Neil accused me of it well before I even knew what the word meant. And when I realized he was right, about that at least, I tried to be careful. There was this guy back in San Diego, Alex. We’d go to the beach and fool around in his car. I was supposed to take Max to the amusement park at Mission beach. It’s this shitty little tourist trap thing, but there’s an arcade there and she liked that stupid wooden roller coaster. I’d forgotten that I told her that I’d take her. So I was pissed that she had to tag along. I gave her a pocket full of quarters and figured that would keep her occupied and Alex and I could… But then Max found us. And she… God I hated her for it for so long, what she did. She told Neil about it, about seeing me kiss Alex. I thought I would die that night. But I didn’t. And when I recovered there was this plan to move to the middle of fucking nowhere. And it was made clear to me that if Neil so much as _thought_ I was back to my filthy ways, he’d kill me. So I get here, with this stupid plan in my head to be the straightest man to ever hit Hawkins, and I see you, and…it was like the universe was punishing me. And so I hated you for it, but I didn’t…not really, not ever.”

“Billy—”

Billy shakes his head, cutting him off. “Just let me finish, okay? Then you can say whatever it is that you need to say about it. But I gotta…you gotta understand. There was a moment when I thought that I could be your friend, that I could just hide it, and that it could be enough. Maybe if I’d been a better person back then, stronger, or…had like, a safe space to just be myself sometimes, maybe I could have done that. But, I knew that if I let you in for just that, I wouldn’t be able to pretend. So, I was an asshole to you, I shoved you away with everything I had because otherwise I would have done something stupid. But you pushed back. You never cowered to my shit. I loved it. I hated how I was treating you, but at the time I thought there was nothing to be done for it. And then we weren’t _friends_ but, there was something there, at least I thought. We had that comradery meets rivalry thing and…I thought that was all I would ever get of you. Just dreams and fantasies that kept me sane at night, little glimmers of tales of King Steve’s past thanks to Tommy, and those days when you would look at me like I was…someone. I was content to let it ride there. I’d hurt you in the past and couldn’t be honest with you even if I’d wanted to at the time.” He shrugged. “It was nice to know, in those days, that all of that acting I was doing—was just that. Acting. I did it so well that sometimes I thought just being that way might be easier, but then I would look at you and it would hit me all over again just how much I wanted you. You helped me remember my truth. And that was enough.”

“It’s not enough for me though. If I’d known…” Steve drifts off, frowning.

“I wasn’t ready to tell you.” Billy explains. “Then the Mindflayer happened. And,” Billy swallows thickly. “It _knew,_ it ripped into my mind and it knew that you were my pressure point. And so, to keep you safe, I did things. Things that it wanted me to do. I didn’t put up a fight as long as you were kept safe. Horrible things.” He shivered.

Steve sat down next to him. “That wasn’t you, babe.”

“Except it was.” Billy says, firm and unyielding. “Look, I get it. What that _thing_ does. How I’m not _responsible._ And all of the other bullshit—I got it. But I also know that I would without question set fire to this world and watch it burn without a care as long as you were safe. I did things to keep you safe. And I hate it—what I had to do—but I don’t…regret it.” The last part is a quiet thing that snakes through the room. “That’s why I’m not a hero, Steve. Because it wasn’t about right and wrong or saving the town or the girl, it was about you. And I think I finally just…didn’t care anymore when I saw you up on the second floor that night. I thought I wasn’t going to make it out of there alive but at least I could see you without that _thing_ writhing in my mind and it was enough. And then I _felt_ it.” There are tears in Billy’s eyes as he lets the silence drift between them, giving all the horrible parts of himself room to breathe. “That burn across my hip? It was the best thing— _you_ are the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I know I don’t deserve you, but I’m so glad that I have you.”

“You were fighting to save me that whole time it had you?” Steve asks, quietly.

“You and Max, but mostly you.” Billy nods, chewing on his lip. “I mean at first I didn’t know what was happening? It felt like me, but not. Like a nightmare where you see yourself doing and saying things but you can’t stop them? But then it became more insistent, held more control of me, and I knew it wasn’t me, but I didn’t know what it was. I could um, bargain with it, sort of. Because I knew your schedule at Scoops so it knew where to find you. So I did other things to make it happy so that it would leave you alone, so that it wouldn’t force me to walk into that mall or be anywhere near you. And Heather…well, that helped too.”

Steve stands and shifts, positions himself in front of Billy and then kneels between Billy’s spread thighs, places his fingertips on the warm denim encasing them. This thing that Billy has shared with him, his entire history of wanting him and just what he did to protect him, it’s not pretty or wholly _good,_ but Steve can’t think of anyone who would have gone to the lengths that Billy had to keep him safe. Billy had damaged his own soul to keep him safe. There’s a feeling that is swelling up his throat, and to hold it back now in the wake of everything Billy has admitted would make him a coward. He slides one hand up Billy’s thigh to his stomach, up the soft material of his thermal, to cup Billy’s cheek to force him to look at him.

“I love you.” He says it like a prayer, like absolution. He’s thought it so many damn times that it’s a relief to finally say it aloud to Billy. His breath hitches in his chest and he blinks. “I love you, Billy Hargrove. And everything you did, everything you’ve gone through, I wish I could have helped you through it. I wish I would have known. But I’m never going to leave you alone again. So anything else that comes? We will see through it together.”

Billy closes his eyes, the movement causing warm tears to slide down his cheeks as he lets out a soft sob, curling forward until his forehead meets Steve’s. The tears slide in between his skin and the edges of Steve’s fingers. Their kiss tastes like salt and rebirth.

“I love you too,” Billy’s voice breaks as he says it. “For a long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a turn that I wasn't expecting, but then I sorta just went with it. Which has kinda been the theme of this fic so far. Is there angst? Well, I am the queen of it so of course. But I think that Billy finally admitting these things to Steve is going to really help him heal.


End file.
